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Exactly one year ago, a mysterious illness appeared in China’s Hubei province, ushering in a pandemic that has so far caused more than 1.3 million deaths worldwide and infected tens of millions of people, he writes. Newsweek.
In March, the South China Morning Post published an article based on unpublished information from the Chinese government that the first known case of COVID-19 was identified on November 17, 2019 in a 55-year-old man from Hubei province. . “Patient Zero” has not been officially confirmed to date.
Authorities in Beijing did not officially identify the first case until December 8, 2019.
How the epidemic started
In the following weeks, medical personnel in the city of Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, treated dozens of people with pneumonia of unknown origin. The patients were treated for unexplained symptoms such as fever, cough, and breathing problems.
Among them was an elderly couple who arrived at Hubei hospital on December 26. Zhang Jixian, a doctor who treated the couple, told Xinhua News Agency in April that the illness “resembled the flu or pneumonia.” Zhang was a medical expert during the SARS epidemic that appeared in China in 2003 and deduced that the two old men may have been infected with a new infectious disease. She asked to be tested and the son of the elderly and discovered in her case the same abnormalities in the lungs. “It is unlikely that three members of a family will get sick with the same disease at the same time if it were not for an infectious disease,” the doctor told Xinhua.
On December 27, a patient was presented to the hospital who was found to have the same abnormalities in his lungs.
The disease begins to spread
Zhang Jixian submitted a report to his superiors announcing the discovery of a new viral disease.
On December 29, three other patients with similar symptoms came to the hospital and the management of the medical unit launched an internal investigation. These patients were found to have been in a market in Wuhan at one point, as had a fourth hospitalized patient.
The internal investigation concluded that these cases of atypical pneumonia were rare and that further investigation was needed. The situation was reported to local authorities on December 29.
The Wuhan Center for Disease Prevention and Control took over the investigation, conducted a field inspection, and discovered new cases.
On December 30, Hubei province authorities reported the pneumonia outbreak to the Chinese Center for Disease Prevention and Control. At the same time, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission issued an alert, informing subordinate institutions how to proceed in the event of a possible outbreak of infectious pneumonia.
On December 31, the commission released the first public message on the pandemic, informing the residents of Wuhan about the epidemic. 27 cases were confirmed, of which 7 people were in serious condition.
There was no evidence yet that the disease was transmitted between humans and its cause had not been detected. Beijing authorities have sent experts to Wuhan to collect samples from patients and help local doctors control the disease.
The new virus appears
According to the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, laboratory tests performed on samples taken from patients were negative for 26 known pathogens. On January 7, Chinese researchers confirmed that a new coronavirus, called 2019-nCoV, is the cause of the mysterious epidemic.
On January 24, a group of Chinese researchers published a study in The Lancet based on examinations of the 41 hospitalized patients as of January 2. The newspaper mentioned that 27 of the patients had frequented a market in Wuhan. 13 of them had been admitted to intensive care and 6 had died. The study also said that symptoms had appeared on December 1, 2019 in the case of the first identified patient.
The researchers wrote that there were “significant gaps” in their information about the virus, including its origin.
The current situation of the coronavirus pandemic
To date, more than 55 million people have been infected with the new coronavirus. Of these, 35.4 million were cured and more than 1.3 million died.
The most affected countries, by total number of cases, are the United States (11.2 million cases), India (8.8 million), Brazil (5.8 million), France (1.9 million), Russia (1 , 9 million), Spain (1.5 million), United Kingdom (1.4 million) and Argentina (1.3 million).
The most affected countries, according to the number of deaths, are the United States (246,000), Brazil (166,000), India (130,000), Great Britain (52,000), France (44,000), Spain (41,000), Argentina (35,000) and Russia (33,000). .
Publisher: VM
