 | A Timeline of Covid-19All the news not fit to print |  |
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Nov 17: The first case of covid-19 is detected in Hubei province, according to an article in the March 13 South China Morning Post by Josephine Ma, citing an unpublished China government report Dec 1, 2019: A worker of a wildlife market in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, is the first recorded case of a new kind of pneumonia (reported only on Dec 16) Dec 16, 2019: A patient at Wuhan Central Hospital is diagnosed with an unknown coronavirus, according to an article by Ai Fen, director of the emergency at Wuhan Central hospital, in China's Renwu/People magazine (the interview is later censored) Dec 27: Zhang Jixian, a doctor from Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine, informs Wuhan health officials that a new coronavirus is causing the new kind of pneumonia (more than 180 people have been infected) Dec 30: Ai Fen tells other doctors about a new SARS-like virus but she is reprimanded by the hospital and forbidden to post any more information; Wenliang Li, one of the doctors that has received the information, posts to a WeChat group of his former schoolmates of a SARS-like infection and his post is shared widely on WeChat Dec 31: Wuhan health officials confirm 27 cases of covid-19 and close the wildlife market that seems related to the virus' spread, and China reports to the World Health Organization that a new type of coronavirus, initially labeled "novel coronavirus" or nCoV, caused a cluster of pneumonia in Wuhan Dec 31: There are already 104 cases in Hubei province (according to a February 17 report by China's CDC) Dec 31: Taiwan begins inspecting all passengers coming from Wuhan Jan 1: Wuhan's Public Security Bureau intimidates the eight doctors who had posted about the new illness on WeChat while the Hubei Provincial Health Commission orders city labs to stop testing samples and to destroy existing samples Jan 3: Wuhan police summons Wenliang Li and reprimands him for "making false comments on the Internet" Jan 3: Zhang Yongzhen at Fudan University in Shanghai analyzes a sample from Wuhan and realizes that it is 89.11% similar to the SARS virus Jan 5: The World Health Organization issues a worldwide warning titled "Pneumonia of unknown cause" Jan 5: Fudan University in Shanghai announces that the Wuhan cluster is associated with a novel coronavirus and that it has sequenced the entire genome Jan 6: The New York Times publishes an article about a pneumonia-like illness in Wuhan Jan 8: The World Health Organization warns that the 50 pneumonia cases in Wuhan may be caused by a new deadly virus related to SARS and MERS Jan 9: The Wuhan City Health Commission declares that "there is no clear evidence the virus can spread among humans" (later this will be proven wrong) Jan 10: Chinese scientists of Fudan University in Shanghai publish the new virus' genetic sequence on Virological.org showing that the genome contains 29,811 RNA bases representing instructions for 25-29 proteins (original post) Jan 10: In the first ten days of January there are 653 cases and 102 deaths (according to a February 17 report by China's CDC) Jan 11: A Communist Party meeting is held in Wuhan as scheduled while the Wuhan Health Commission insists that there are only 41 confirmed cases Jan 11: Wuhan (and therefore the world) records the first death of covid-19 Jan 12: There are no covid-19 cases outside the province of Hubei (World Health Organization) Jan 13: The first covid-19 case is reported outside China (a Chinese woman from Wuhan in Thailand) Jan 13: North Korea places all citizens returning from China under "medical supervision" (a United Nations resolution forced China to repatriate all North Korean laborers) Jan 13: Christian Drosten, who co-discovered the original SARS virus in 2003, now director of an Institute of Virology in Berlin, publishes the first paper on how to test for covid-19 ( "Diagnostic detection of Wuhan coronavirus 2019 by real-time RTPCR"). The test is adopted by the World Health Organization, that begins to circulate it, but the USA decides to develop its own test. Jan 13: Barney Graham (who developed a Zika vaccine in 2016) sends Moderna in Boston an optimized version of the virus' RNA Jan 14: The World Health Organization tweets that "preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus identified in Wuhan" (later this will be proven wrong) Jan 15: The first case in Shanghai (a woman from Wuhan) Jan 15: Japan's first case (a Chinese man coming from Wuhan) Jan 17: The genetic analysis of two Thai travel cases proves that human-to-human transmission is happening in Wuhan (paper) Jan 18: The Wuhan Health Commission announces four new cases but tens of thousands of people are allowed to gather for the Annual Wuhan Lunar New Year banquet Jan 18: China's government dispatches SARS expert Zhong Nanshan to Wuhan who recognizes the gravity of the situation and recommends quarantining the entire city Jan 19: Trump's adviser Peter Navarro, an expert on China, warns the US government of the possibility of a devastating epidemic that will cost $3.8 trillion to the US economy (read it here) Jan 19: A man dies of covid-19 in Brazil's metropolis of Rio de Janeiro (it will be discovered 4 months later by Scientists of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation) Jan 20: Shibo Jiang of Fudan University publishes the paper "An Emerging Coronavirus Causing Pneumonia Outbreak in Wuhan" that specifically mentions human-to-human transmission and Zhong Nanshan talks about human-to-human transmission of the virus on national television CCTV and China's president Xi calls attention to it Jan 20: The USA and South Korea both report their first cases of covid-19, respectively a returning Seattle resident who had been in Wuhan and a Chinese traveler from Wuhan (South Korea's first infected citizen will be announced 3 days later, a worker returned from Wuhan on Jan 20) Jan 20: There have already been 412 deaths in Hubei province (according to a February 17 report by China's CDC) Jan 21: China's People's Daily reports the covid-19 epidemic in Wuhan and quotes a top official as stating that "anyone who deliberately delays and hides the reporting of [virus] cases out of his or her own self-interest will be nailed on the pillar of shame for eternity." Jan 21: China's CDC states that "Despite extensive searching, no animal from the market has thus far been identified as a possible source of the infection" (paper) Jan 22: China's official death toll jumps to 17 Jan 22: Tedros Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization, begins daily news briefings to warn the world that the virus is spreading and "we have a window of opportunity to stop this virus, but that window is rapidly closing" Jan 22: The Wuhan Institute of Virology determines that the genome of this new coronavirus is 96% identical to that of a bat coronavirus (paper) Jan 23: China locks down Wuhan but Wuhan's mayor Zhou Xianwang admits that more than 5 million people have already left Wuhan. Jan 23: Taiwan bans all Wuhan residents Jan 23: A study by Zheng-Li Shi of the Wuhan Institute of Virology shows that the new virus' genetic sequence is 96.2% identical to that of a bat coronavirus (found in horseshoe bats of Yunnan) and 79.5% identical to the SARS coronavirus (paper) Jan 23: Singapore's first case (a Chinese tourist coming from Wuhan) Jan 24: Taiwan stops exports of surgical face masks and orders local companies to increase production Jan 24: Vietnam's first case, with evidence of person-to-person transmission Jan 24: The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the new coronavirus is 86.9% identical to the bat SARS-like coronavirus (paper) Jan 24: The first paper is published in a scientific magazine by George Gao and others of China's CDC ("A novel coronavirus outbreak of global health concern") challenges the theory that the epidemic began in the Wuhan seafood market because the earliest case, a patient who became ill on Dec 1, had no link to the seafood market ( summary) Jan 24: Analyzing the viral genome, Andrew Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh estimates that the covid19 virus could have originated already in October (paper or summary Jan 24: China's Lunar New Year holiday begins with hundreds of millions of people moving around the country but China also extends the lockdown in Hubei province and starts to build a new hospital in Wuhan Jan 24: France reports its first three cases, three citizens returning from Wuhan (two in Paris and one in Bordeaux) Jan 25: Taiwan suspends tours to China Jan 25: Australia's first case, a Chinese tourist from Wuhan, and Canada's first case, a Toronto resident returning from Wuhan Jan 25: China cancels all public events for the Lunar New Year Jan 25: California's first case, the third case in the USA Jan 25: Kristian Andersen at the Scripps Research Institute posts his analysis of 27 available genomes on Virological.org and concludes that they had "a most recent common ancestor" - meaning a common source - as early as 1 October 2019" Jan 26: Anthony Fauci, the director of the USA's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, declares that the new virus poses a "very, very low risk to the United States" Jan 26: Haitao Yang at Shanghai Tech University in China publishes on the open-access Protein Data Bank the 3D structure of Mpro, the virus's main protease (without Mpro, there is no viral replication) (paper) Jan 27: Germany reports its first case (at Webasto headquarters in Bavaria, a German business man who met a Chinese businesswoman) Jan 27: China's official death toll passes 100, almost all in Hubei province Jan 28: China's National Medical Products Administration approves covid-19 test kits from five companies Jan 29: Vancouver's (and West Canada's) first case, a national returning from Wuhan Jan 29: A paper by George Gao of the China CDC and others states that five of the initial six patients had no exposure to the seafood market and that human-to-human transmission was underway as early as "the middle of December 2019" ("Early Transmission Dynamics in Wuhan, China, of Novel Coronavirus-Infected Pneumonia") Jan 30: India's first case, a student returning from Wuhan Jan 30: While claiming zero cases, North Korea declares a national emergency Jan 30: There are only 5 confirmed cases in the USA, all of them individuals who have returned from China Jan 30: 54 academic papers about covid-19 have been published in English-language journals, mostly written by Chinese scientists (Nature) Jan 31: Taiwan orders face mask distribution to all schools Jan 31: There have already been more than 900 deaths in Hubei province (according to a February 17 report by China's CDC) Jan 31: China reports cases of covid-19 survivors getting reinfected (also on the English-language CGTN television channel). Jan 31: After Italy discovers the first cases (two Chinese tourists in Roma), it suspends all flights from China Jan 31: Spain's first case, a German tourist in the Canary Islands Jan 31: The first case in Silicon Valley (a resident returning from Wuhan) Jan 31: The first death of covid-19 outside China is recorded in the Philippines Jan 31: Trevor Bedford at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle posts on his blog a note that the new virus spreads easily like the flu and he has been alerting authorities since Jan 20 Jan 31: Science Magazine quotes Daniel Lucey, an infectious disease specialist at Georgetown University, as asserting that "the virus was already circulating silently among humans before it contaminated the seafood market" (Science Magazine article) Jan 31: The USA bars most foreigners who recently visited China from entering the USA, but no returning US citizen is screened Feb 1: Massachusetts' first case (a young man returning from Wuhan) Feb 2: The Philippines reports the first death outside of China, a Chinese man from Wuhan Feb 3: South Korea starts testing for the virus Feb 4: Alex Azar, secretary of Health and Human Services, declares a public-health emergency, which means that only the CDC test kit can be used in the USA, and, for example, New York is forbidden to use its own working covid-19 test kit Feb 4: Malaysia's first case (a man returning from Singapore) Feb 5: The CDC director Robert Redfield tweets that "CDC does not currently recommend the use of facemasks to help prevent novel #coronavirus. #2019nCoV is not spreading in communities in the US." Feb 5: CDC sends faulty test kits to about 100 labs Feb 5: Shibo Jiang of Fudan University publishes the paper "A Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Causing Pneumonia-associated Respiratory Syndrome" Feb 6: Taiwan bans all Chinese visitors Feb 6: A woman dies mysteriously in Silicon Valley and two months later she is found to have had covid19 (Patricia Dowd, who worked for Lam Research, a chip manufacturing company with offices in Wuhan) Feb 6: Silicon Valley's first death (discovered only in April) and therefore California's first Feb 7: Wenliang Li, the doctor who first announced the existence of a new deadly coronavirus, dies Feb 7: Britain's first case (a man returning from Singapore) Feb 8: The official death toll of covid-19 in China (811 deaths) surpasses that of the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic Feb 10: The World Health Organization ships 192 testing kits (containing 100 tests each) to 20 European laboratories Feb 11: China's official death toll passes 1,000 Feb 11: China fires senior officials of Wuhan including the head of the Hubei Health Commission Feb 12: Japan announces more than 100 cases of covid-19 on board the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship Feb 13: China removes Hubei's provincial party secretary and Wuhan's party secretary, the first time since 2017 that top officials have been removed Feb 14: The FDA stops the clinical virology laboratory at the University of Washington from testing for covid19 Feb 14: Egypt's (and Africa's) first case Feb 14: France's (and Europe's) first death from covid-19 Feb 14: A 38-year old marathon runner falls sick in Italy's Lombardy region but he will be diagnosed only a week later with covid-19 Feb 15: There are already 388 cases in Italy's Lombardy region but they will be diagnosed only later Feb 16: Louisiana celebrates Mardi Gras despite the epidemic Feb 17: China's official death toll is 1,770 with 70,548 cases but infections start slowing down Feb 17: China's CDC publishes its report on early infections Feb 17: The annual meeting of the Christian Open Door Church begins in Mulhouse, eastern France Feb 17: Anthony Fauci declares that the danger from coronavirus is "just minuscule" compared with the "real and present danger" of flu. Feb 18: South Korea reports an outbreak linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in the southern city of Daegu Feb 19: Iran's first case and first deaths (Iranians returning to Qom from China) Feb 19: Thousands of Valencia football fans travel from Spain to Milan for a Champions League soccer game Feb 20: Italy's first death, in the Lombardy region Feb 20: South Korea's first death Feb 20: Russia bans entry for Chinese citizens Feb 21: Israel's first case, a national returning home from the Diamond Princess cruise ship Feb 21: Chinese scientist Yan Bai publishes the first paper that asymptomatic persons can infect others ( "Presumed Asymptomatic Carrier Transmission of COVID-19") Feb 22: South Korea reports 229 new cases in a single day Feb 22: New York's first case (although it will be diagnosed only on Mar 3), a Westchester man Feb 22: Milan's Fashion Week, attended by people from all over the world, while Milan's region reports Italy's first death from covid-19 Feb 24: Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Afghanistan and Oman report their first cases Feb 24: Paris Fashion Week takes off, with most people coming from Milan Fashion Week Feb 24: Rush Limbaugh, host of the #1 radio show in the USA, claims that "the coronavirus is the common cold" Feb 24: An Italian tourist is the first case in Spain's Canary Islands Feb 24: Moderna in Boston delivers a candidate vaccine to the National Institutes of Health, a mere 42 days after the DNA sequence of the virus was published by the Chinese; German companies CureVac and BioNTech are also developing mRNA vaccines Feb 25: South Korea's cases rise to 977 and Italy's to 229 while the epidemic stabilizes in China Feb 26: More new cases are now reported outside China than inside, notably the first cases in Norway, Romania (a national who hung out with an Italian), Greece, Georgia, Pakistan and Brazil (a national returning from Italy) Feb 26: The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Maryland is attended by thousands of people from all over the USA with special guest Donald Trump Feb 27: Italy's infections jump to 650 while Estonia, Denmark and the Netherlands report their first cases Feb 27: The first antibody ("serological") test for covid-19 is unveiled by Linfa Wang's team at Duke-NUS in Singapore (paper) Feb 27: There are 59 cases in the USA, of which 33 are in California (but 24 are of US citizens who got sick abroad, mostly on the Diamond Princess cruise ship) Feb 27: Chinese respiratory specialist Zhong Nanshan states at a press conference that "though the COVID-19 was first discovered in China, it does not mean that it originated from China" Feb 27: 16,000 Muslims of the Tablighi Jamaat movement gather at a mosque in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Feb 27: Sean Hannity of Fox News (one of the top television programs of the USA) calls the measures against covid-19 a leftist conspiracy ("off the charts fearmongering") on the USA's #1 television station Fox News Feb 27: two Chinese teams report success in using mesenchymal stem cells to treat covid-19 pneumonia ( a study in Yunnan province and a study at Beijing YouAn Hospital) Feb 28: The CDC director Robert Redfield asks people to stop buying N95 respirators masks - and leave them for health care workers who really need them. ("There's no role for these masks in the community") Feb 28: Nigeria's (and therefore sub-Saharan Africa's) first case, an Italian visitor Feb 28: The World Health Organization has shipped its covid tests to more than 50 countries while the USA still doesn't have a national working test Feb 28: Mexico's first cases, two Mexicans returning from Italy Feb 28: Hokkaido is the first region in Japan to declare a state of emergency Feb 28: The first death of covid-19 is reported in the USA (near Seattle). The USA has only tested 472 people. Feb 29: Ecuador's first case, a national returning from Spain Feb 29: The F.D.A. finally approves New York's test kit and New York can start testing Feb 29: South Korea reports 813 new cases in one day Feb 29: The US surgeon general Jerome Adams urges healthy people not to wear face masks (quote from his tweet: "Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS! They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus") Feb 29: Scientists from Argentina and San Francisco's startup CASPR Biotech announce a CRISPR-based test for covid-19 (paper) Mar 2: First cases in Saudi Arabia (a national returning from Iran), Tunisia (a national returning from Italy), Jordan (a national returning from Italy) and Morocco (a national returning from Italy) Mar 2: Donald Trump on national television downplays both the health effects and the fatality rate of covid-19 Mar 2: Qingtian in China's Zhejiang province reports cases by Chinese nationals returning from Italy's Lombardy region Mar 3: Indonesia's first official case, linked to a Japanese tourist Mar 3: A study by Shengjie Lai at the University of Southampton shows that China could have limited its own infections if it had acted earlier, e.g. by 66% if one week earlier, 86% if two weeks earlier, if 95% three weeks earlier (paper) Mar 4: Italy has 3,089 cases and all schools and universities are ordered to close Mar 4: Poland's first cases, a man who returned from Germany and two girls returning from Italy Mar 4: The six-day Winter Party Festival, a beachside dance party for the gay community, begins in Florida Mar 4: California's first official death is a passenger of the Diamond Princess cruise ship (in April earlier deaths will be discovered) Mar 5: South Africa's first case, a national returning from Italy Mar 5: German scientists prove that asymptomatic persons can infect others (paper) Mar 6: The USA has carried out just 2,000 tests, whereas South Korea (with a much smaller population) has conducted more than 140,000 tests Mar 6: The University of Washington becomes the first large college in the USA to move all classes online for its 50,000 students, followed by Stanford Mar 6: Colombia's first case, a young Colombian woman returning from Italy, and Peru's first case, a national returning from France and Spain Mar 7: There are more than 100,000 confirmed cases in the world and about 3,500 people have died worldwide, but mostly in the Hubei province of China (80,000 cases, about 3,000 dead) Mar 7: Corriere della Sera publishes a leaked memo that the Italian government is about to quarantine 16 million people prompting thousands of people to leave that area Mar 7: "Spring break" vacations begin for more than one million US students who flock to popular destinations such as Florida beaches Mar 7: More than 3,500 people dressed up as Smurfs gather in Landerneau, Western France, to breaks the Guinness World Record Mar 8: More than 100,000 people march in Spain's capital Madrid to celebrate International Women's Day Mar 8: An-Suei Yang at Academia Sinica in Taiwan creates monoclonal antibodies for developing a rapid antigen-based test (paper) Mar 9: Italy enacts a nation-wide lockdown Mar 9: Donald Trump tweets that "last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!" Mar 9: Sean Hannity calls the epidemic a "hoax" on the USA's #1 television station Fox News Mar 10: First deaths in Lebanon and Morocco Mar 10: First case in Michigan Mar 10: Sikh religious leader Baldev Singh, who returned to India's Punjab state from virus-plagued Italy and Germany, attends the Hola Mohalla festival Mar 11: The USA bans all travel from Europe Mar 11: A study by Linfa Wang's team at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore suggests that the Singapore strain may be less lethal than others (paper) Mar 11: New York's SUNY and CUNY suspend in-person classes Mar 11: About 250,000 Muslims from many Islamic countries gather in Lahore, Pakistan, to attend the five-day Tableeghi Ijtem of a Deobandi movement Mar 11: Madrid closes schools and universities and thousands of students travel back to their hometowns Mar 11: First cases in Turkey (a Turkish man returning from Europe) and Bolivia Mar 13: Trump declares a national emergency in the USA, and commercial firms are finally able to start testing for covid-19 Mar 13: Arturo Casadevall at the Johns Hopkins Hospital published his paper advocating convalescent serum therapy (paper) Mar 13: 3,000 Muslims of the Tablighi Jamaat movement gather at a mosque in Delhi Nizamuddin, India Mar 14: Spain enacts a nation-wide lockdown Mar 14: Taiwan imposes a 14-day quarantine for all arriving travelers Mar 15: Spain's cases jump to 7,700 with 288 deaths Mar 15: Poland bans all foreign visitors Mar 15: Peru and Argentina ban all foreign visitors, the first countries in South America to do so, soon followed by Ecuador and Chile Mar 16: Malaysia bans all foreign visitors Mar 16: Germany and Spain close their land borders Mar 16: A study published by Imperial College London predicts that, unless aggressive action is taken, the coronavirus could kill 2.2 million people in the USA Mar 16: Liberia's first case, a government official returning from Switzerland Mar 16: Iran has a total of 14,991 infections and 853 deaths. Mar 16: The Bay Area's 7 million residents are told to stay home indefinitely, the first area of the USA to do so Mar 16: France enacts a nation-wide lockdown Mar 16: China's CanSino begins clinical trials of a recombinant vaccine based on their 2017 Ebola vaccine and Boston's Moderna begins clinical trials of its mRNA-based vaccine Mar 17: Italy has 31,506 cases with 2,503 deaths Mar 17: Vladimir Putin declares that the covid-19 epidemic is "under control" in Russia Mar 17: Scientists of the Scripps Research Institute publish an analysis of the coronavirus' genome showing its likely genetic path as it jumped from animals to humans but also state that "no animal coronavirus has been identified that is sufficiently similar to have served as the direct progenitor of SARS-CoV-2" ("The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2", Nature Medicine paper) Mar 17: The European Union bans non-EU visitors (except in Ireland) Mar 17: Italy imposes a 14-day quarantine for all arriving travelers Mar 18: Israel and Russia ban all foreign visitors Mar 18, Canada and the USA close their border Mar 18: India bans all foreign visitors Mar 18: Italy has 35,713 cases with 2,978 deaths Mar 18: China reports no new cases except for Chinese returning from abroad Mar 18: All California universities have moved their classes online Mar 18: The Czech Republic is the first nation in Europe to make mask-wearing mandatory, followed by Slovakia one week later Mar 19: The governor of California extends the stay-at-home order to the whole state, the first state in the USA to do so Mar 19: Russia reports its first death of covid-19 Mar 19: The USA is now the 6th country in the world for covid-19 cases after China, Italy, Iran, Spain and Germany Mar 19: No new cases are recorded in Wuhan for the first time Mar 19: Hoddaido in Japan lifts the state of emergency Mar 19: The number of deaths in Italy passes China's official number (3,405 to 3,245) Mar 19: More than 600 cases are confirmed in 34 countries in Africa Mar 20: The first death in India's Punjab, the Sikh preacher Baldev Singh Mar 20: Australia bans all foreign visitors Mar 21: The German state of Bavaria enacts a lockdown Mar 21: Europe is now the epicentre of the epidemic with Italy reporting 53,578 cases and 4,825 deaths and Spain reporting more than 21,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths Mar 21: 42 of Africa's 54 countries have cases Mar 21: The Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology announces that it will begin testing the vaccine candidate VPM1002, based on the century-old Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, in conjunction with the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer Mar 22: Worldwide the death toll is more than 13,000 (using China's official numbers) out of more than 300,000 cases Mar 22: The governor of New York issues a state-wide stay-at-home order Mar 22: Ghana bans all foreign visitors, the first country in Africa to do so Mar 22: Vietnam bans all foreign visitors Mar 23: Africa's cases surpass 1,000 Mar 23: As Britain and other countries join the lockdown, about two billion people worldwide are in a partial or total lockdown Mar 24: New York has half of the 50,000 cases of the USA and 210 of the USA's 655 deaths but only a tiny percentage of the population has been tested in the other states Mar 24: India orders a nation-wide lockdown Mar 24: The Lombardy region had recorded 4,178 deaths, 61% of Italy's total Mar 25: There are 452,241 cases (officially 81,218 in China, 74,386 in Italy, 60,653 in the USA, half in New York, 47,610 in Spain) and 20,494 deaths in the world (officially 3,281 in China, 7,503 in Italy, 3,434 in Spain, 2,077 in Iran, 1,100 in France, 819 in the USA) Mar 25: Jeremy Howard, a scientist at University of San Francisco, starts a campaign on social media under the hashtag #Masks4All, writing about "the senseless and unscientific push for the general public to avoid wearing masks" Mar 26: South Africa begins a nation-wide lockdown Mar 26: The US is the world's most infected country Mar 26: China bans all foreign visitors Mar 27: British prime minister Boris Johnson has the virus Mar 27: Chinese scientists from the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen publish the first study about convalescent plasma transfusion for covid-19 (paper) Mar 27: Interviewed by Science magazine, the director-general of China's CDC (George Gao) says: "The big mistake in the U.S. and Europe, in my opinion, is that people aren't wearing masks" (interview) Mar 27: Radio Free Asia estimates that the real death toll in Wuhan may have been more than 40,000 Mar 28: The USA (population 0.3 billion) has more people infected with covid-19 (some 120,000) than the whole of east Asia (population 2 billion) Mar 28: Both Italy and Spain have passed China's official number of deaths (Italy 10,023 and Spain 5,812 versus China's official 3,295) Mar 29: China limits the number of international flights to 134 nationwide Mar 30: Every country in Latin America has cases of covid-19 Mar 30: Wired magazine posts an article titled "It's Time to Face Facts, America: Masks Work" (article) Mar 31: Fifteen states of the USA have not issued "stay-at-home" orders (Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakora, South Dakota Wyoming, Utah, Oklahoma, Texas) Apr 1: The Western world has by far the highest number of cases and deaths in the world: the USA has 205,035 cases and 4,516 deaths, Italy 110,574 cases and 13,155 deaths, Spain 102,136 cases and 9,053 deaths, Germany 76,544 cases and 858 deaths, France 52,128 cases and 3,523 deaths, Britain 29,474 cases and 2,352 deaths. Apr 1: Hawaii imposes a 14-day quarantine on all domestic travelers Apr 1: South Korea imposes a 14-day quarantine on all international travelers Apr 1: Thailand bans all foreign visitors Apr 2: The total number of cases in the world passes one million Apr 2: Indonesia bans all foreign visitors Apr 2: Spain's death toll peaks at 950 deaths within 24 hours Apr 3: After denying for two months that they are useful, the CDC recommends that people wear face masks but Trump says he will not wear one Apr 3: North Korea claims to be "totally free" of covid-19 Apr 4: Spain (124,000 cases) passes Italy as the second most infected country in the world after the USA (more than 300,000 cases) Apr 4: Louisiana (population 4.7 million) has the highest number of covid-19 deaths in the USA after New York (20 million), New Jersey (9 million) and Michigan (10 million), having passed both California (40 million), Washington state and Florida (21 million) Apr 4: The World Health Organisation already counts 62 candidate vaccines in development worldwide Apr 5: South Korea has 518 imported cases, mostly citizens returning from Europe and the USA Apr 6: Deaths in the USA pass 10,000 and deaths in Britain pass 5,000 (two countries whose governments initially downplayed the epidemic) Apr 6: The hardest hit region of Italy, Lombardy, makes face masks mandatory Apr 6: San Diego's Inovio begins clinical testin on humans of its DNA candidate vaccine, funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), already available for animal infections Apr 7: China reports no covid-19 deaths for the first time since its first death and the lockdown on Wuhan is partially lifted Apr 8: About 60,000 people have died in Europe of covid-19 (half of them in Spain and Italy) and 15,000 in the USA versus roughly 300 deaths in east Asia (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong) Apr 8: The official number of cases in Russia passes 10,000 Apr 9: A study by Gonzalo Otazu at the New York Institute of Technology shows that people vaccinated against tuberculosis with the bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine are less likely to die of covid-19 Apr 9: Two genomic studies (one by Harm van Bakel's team at Mount Sinai and one by Adriana Heguy's team at NYU) show that New York's covid-19 epidemic originated from Europe Apr 9: Two genomic studies show that New York's covid-19 epidemic originated from Europe Apr 9: The border Chinese town of Suifenhe in Heilongjiang province enters a lockdown after an influx of infected Chinese returning from Russia Apr 10: Deaths in both Turkey and Brazil pass 1,000 Apr 10: Germany imposes a 14-day quarantine on all arriving travelers Apr 10: Haitao Yang's team at Shanghai Tech Univ publishes the structure of the virus's replication machinery, a large protein called RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) (paper ) Apr 10: Gilead's remdesivir improves the conditions of 68% of critically-ill covid-19 patients in multiple locations of the world, but the drug is not approved for treating any disease Apr 10: The South Korean city of Daegu, which witnessed the first large outbreak outside of China, reports zero new cases Apr 10: Both Massachusetts and Illinois pass California for number of deaths, behind New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Louisiana Apr 11: The USA, that now has more than half a million cases, passes Italy as the Western country with the highest death toll Apr 12: The USA and Italy report more than 20,000 deaths total, Britain more than 10,000 and Brazil more than 1,000 Apr 13: New York reports than 10,000 deaths total Apr 13: The FDA approves the first at-home coronavirus saliva test, made by a lab at Rutgers University Apr 13: Hoddaido reintroduces the state of emergency after a spoke in new cases Apr 14: South Korea reports that more than 100 people have been reinfected after healing Apr 14: A study by Li Lanjuan's team at Zhejiang University shows that the coronavirus is mutating rapidly and mutations affect its deadliness (paper ) Apr 15: There are more than 2 million confirmed cases and about 130,000 deaths, the vast majority in Europe and the USA (USA, Spain and Italy account for half of all deaths) Apr 15: China's Sinovac begins clinical trial of an inactivated vaccine candidate based on their 2004 SARS vaccine Apr 16: The USA accounts for about one fourth of all deaths worldwide (33,000 or about 100 per million people) while the European Union (population 446 million) has about 74,000 deaths (about 165 in one million people) and Britain has more than 13,000 (about 200 per million people) and the whole of Asia except for China and Iran has fewer than 3,000 Apr 16: Japan, hit by a second wave of infections, declares a nation-wide state of emergency Apr 16: Charles Chiu's lab at the University of California announces a CRISPR-based test for covid-19 (paper) Apr 17: China revises the death toll in Wuhan upwards by 50%, from 2,579 to 3,869 Apr 17: Only five US states have not issued state-wide stay-at-home orders (Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota) Apr 17: The media suspect that more than 10,000 people have died of covid-19 in the Guayas province of Ecuador Apr 17: German chancellor Angela Merkel declares that the outbreak is under control, with each infected person infecting less than one other person on average Apr 17: Kathleen Mullane at the University of Chicago reports that 68% of patients cured with remdesivir improved Apr 18: Florida's governor Ron DeSanti allows some beaches to reopen Apr 19: More than 100,000 people have died in Europe of covid-19 and more than 40,000 in the USA Apr 19: Both Japan's and South Korea's cases of covid-19 pass 10,000, but with only about 200 deaths each Apr 20: Urologists of Nanjing Medical University report that some covid-19 patients develop serious urinary complications including acute kidney injury (paper) Apr 22: The World Health Organization estimates that almost half of all deaths in Europe happened in nursing homes Apr 23: Germany makes face masks compulsory in public Apr 24: New York state tests around 7,500 people for covid-19 antibodies and 14.9% show covid-19 infections Apr 24: Biotech company Mesoblast reports success treating severe covid-19 cases with mesenchymal stem cells at Mount Sinai Hospital Apr 25: More than 200,000 deaths have been reported worldwide, the vast majority in the Western nations as the USA passes 50,000 deaths and Italy, Spain, France and Britain all have more than 20,000 Apr 27: British scientists warn that covid-19 may be tied to a rare syndrome in children, similar to toxic shock syndrome and Kawasaki disease (paper) Apr 28: The death rate per million people is 500 in Spain, 450 in Italy, 350 in France and 320 in Britain, compared with 76 in Germany, and compared with 4.7 in South Korea and 3 in Japan Apr 28: Mount Sinai Hospital in New York reports five cases of stroke in patients younger than 50 infected with covid-19 (paper) Apr 29: Britain reports 26,097 total deaths, second only to Italy's 27,682 in Europe and ahead of Spain's 24,275 (but Spain has higher per-capita rate than both) while the USA passes 60,000 Apr 29: Bette Korber's team at Los Alamos National Laboratory argues that a new more contagious strain appeared in February in Europe and migrated to the East Coast of the USA and has become dominant worldwide since mid-March (paper) Apr 30: No new cases are reported in South Korea and Hong Kong Apr 30: Russian prime minister Mikhail Mishustin tests positive May 2: French doctor Yves Cohen claims that people were already dying of covid-19 in Paris as early as Dec 27 May 3: Russia and Brazil have the fastest growing infections of all major countries May 4: Spain has conducted 41332 covid-19 tests per million people, Italy 35622, Germany 30400, Russia 29465, the USA 21742, Britain 17771, France 16856, South Korea 12310, Brazil 1597, and Japan only 1450 May 5: Britain's death toll overtakes Italy's with more than 32,000 deaths, the highest in Europe and second in the world after the USA May 5: Feng Zhang at the Broad Institute in Boston announces a covid-19 test based on CRISPR instead of PCR (paper) May 5: The New York Times reports that 15 children have been hospitalized with a "multisystem inflammatory syndrome potentially associated with Covid-19." May 5: There are 108 potential covid-19 vaccines in development around the world, according to the World Health Organization May 6: Russia is now fifth in the world for number of cases, behind USA, Spain, Italy and Britain, and Moscow's mayor Sergei Sobyanin admits that the real number of cases in the city is around 300,000, more than triple the official figure, which would make Russia second only to the USA May 9: Anthony Fauci (the same man who four months earlier said the risk to the USA was "very, very low") declares that this virus "is so transmissible, and it is so widespread throughout the world, that even if our infections get well controlled and go down dramatically during the summer, there is virtually no chance it will be eradicated". May 10: Just days after easing some restrictions South Korea, China and Germany all report an increase in new cases, including the first new case in Wuhan in a month May 10: Brazil's death toll passes 10,000, the sixth highest in the world, while the infection slows in Italy, Spain and France May 10: More than 2,000 people attend the Cottonwood Rodeo in rural California despite state orders against public gatherings May 11: New York state reports 73 cases of children who are severely ill with symptoms similar to Kawasaki disease May 11: NBC unveils a secret White House report that shows infection rates spiking in the US heartland, recording weekly increases of 72.4% or higher in Central City (Kentucky), Nashville (Tennessee), Des Moines (Iowa), Amarillo (Texas), and alarming rates in Charlotte (North Carolina), Kansas City (Missouri), Omaha and Lincoln (Nebraska), Minneapolis (Minnesota), Montgomery (Alabama), Columbus (Ohio) and Phoenix (Arizona) May 12: France overtakes Spain in number of deaths, fourth country in the world after the USA, Britain and Italy, while Russia's number of cases is now second only to the USA May 12: A report by Tongji Hospital in Wuhan describes five cases of children who were hospitalized with non-respiratory symptoms and tested positive for covid-19 (paper) May 13: Brazil has the sixth highest death toll in the world as Latin America rapidly becomes the epicenter of covid-19 with many unreported deaths May 14: 100 academics from all over the world write an open letter to all the state governors of the USA pleading for making face masks mandatory in public. May 14: A study by Jeremy Faust of Harvard Medical School and Carlos del Rio of Emory University shows that COVID-19 kills 20 times more people per week than the flu does (based on COVID-19 and flu fatalities in peak weeks counted and reported directly, not estimated) (paper) May 15: More than 90% of the US population is under mandatory lockdown and more than 20 states impose 14-day self-quarantines to travelers May 15: Jamaica Hospital in New York reports patients who suffered strokes infected with Covid-19 (paper) May 15: Spain imposes a 14-day quarantine for all arriving foreigners May 17: As infections and deaths decline all over Europe, Russia and Latin America become the new epicenters of the pandemic May 18: During a virtual World Health Assembly meeting, more than 100 countries call for an "impartial, independent and comprehensive evaluation" of the response to the covid-19 pandemic May 18: Spain has the highest per-capita deaths of major countries (593 per million), followed by Italy (529), Britain (513), and Sweden (366) and in the USA it varies by state: the highest death rate on the east coast is in New York state (1464), the highest in the Midwest is in Michigan (492), the highest in the south is in Louisiana (551), while it is very small on the west coast, for example in California (84). May 20: Dan Barouch at Harvard reports of a DNA vaccine that protects monkeys against covid-19. (paper) May 21: Brazil's death toll passes 20,000 May 22: While cases decline on the east and west coasts of the USA, the highest increases of cases are reported by Tennessee (33%), Louisiana (25%) and Texas (22%) May 23: Brazil has the second highest number of cases after the USA, ahead of Russia, Spain and Britain (but Russia reports very few deaths compared with the others) May 24: For the first time in four months Italy's region Lombardy reports no covid-19 deaths May 25: During the national Memorial Day holiday of the USA, huge crowds flock to beaches in Florida, Missouri, Maryland, Georgia, Virginia and Indiana May 26: The death toll in the USA passes $100,000 May 26: Junshi Biosciences of Shanghai reports that its antibodies CA1 and CB6 reduce covid-19 infection levels in rhesus macaques ( paper) May 26: Protests erupt in many cities of the USA after a black man is killed by the police May 27: France, that was the first country to test it, bans the use of hydroxychloroquine as covid-19 treatment May 31: Brazil, with its 28,834 official deaths, is second only to the USA, Britain and Italy, and has 498,440 confirmed cases, second only the USA's 1.77 million. May 26: The USA witnesses mass gatherings nationwide to protest the police killing of an unarmed black man, George Floyd Jun 1: Italy reports the lowest number of new infections since February 26 and only 60 deaths Jun 2: Spain reports zero new deaths in the last 24 hours for the first time since March. Jun 2: A study finds that in the USA more than 25% of deaths (about 26,000) happened in nursing homes. Jun 2: Mexico's death toll passes 10,000 Jun 5: The University of Oxford ends a large trial of the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine after their study shows no benefit from the drug for covid-19 patients (announcement) Jun 5: Brazil overtakes Italy to become the country with the third-highest death toll worldwide after the USA and Britain Jun 5: People in Beijing are allowed to go out without wearing a mask for the first time in months Jun 5: Based on new studies, the World Health Organization recommends wearing face masks even in public Jun 6: India overtakes Italy in number of cases, becoming the sixth country for number of infections after the USA, Brazil, Russia, Spain and Britain, but per capita it is one of the least infected Jun 6: More than 400,000 people have died of covid-19 around the world, the vast majority in Europe and North America, with the highest per-capita toll in Western Europe Jun 6: Thanks to more ubiquitous testing, the number of known cases is doubling every week in many developing countries like Iraq, Mozambique and Uganda, and doubling every two weeks in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, India and South Africa Jun 7: New Zealand has no active covid-19 infections after the last remaining patient recovered. Jun 8: Brazil is now suffering the highest daily number of deaths in the world, more than 1,000 per day Jun 9: 14 states of the USA record their worst week yet for new infections (Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, Mississippi, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah) with California alone posting a 40% rise in cases and Texas posting a record number of hospitalizations, and a leaked CDC study shows that the USA had the highest spike of daily infections among the major countries while in Europe they are declining Jun 11: After 55 days without a single infection, Beijing reports a cluster in a food market of the southern Fengtai district Jun 12: Brazil's death toll (41,828) passes Britain's (41,481) and is second only to the USA's (116,723) while all continental European countries report fewer than 100 deaths per day, but the highest per-capita death tolls remain Britain's, Spain's, Italy's, Sweden's and France's Jun 15: The FDA revokes emergency authorization of the antimalarian drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, deeming them useless and possibly harmful to treat covid-19 Jun 16: Oxford University announces a treatment for covid-19, the low-dose steroid treatment dexamethasone See also: Covid-19: An introduction and summary Covid-19: How it may change the World The Bizarre Adventures of the Surgical Mask Trump's Virus, The Clown & the Virus The Clown & the Virus - Part 2 Sinophobia & Covid-19 . 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