Get to know COVID-19 : COVID-19 Timeline - How it gets started?

Many people were curious and shocked with the COVID-19 outbreak. It was sudden and the infection rate increases rapidly. World Health Organisation (WHO) recently updated, as in 17th June 2020 there have been 7,941,791 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 434,796 deaths reported to WHO.

Source: World Health Organisation

In this article, we will discover the timeline of the emergence of COVID-19 and the progress and decisions made by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

31 December 2019 - China alerted the World Health (WHO) China Country Office of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. 

1 January 2020 - Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan City closed for the disinfection. 

7 January 2020 - China identified a novel type of Coronavirus as a cause of the pneumonia outbreak.

12 January 2020 - China shared the genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus.

13 January 2020 - Thailand reported the first case of the novel coronavirus outside China. This was the imported case from Wuhan, China. Few days later, Japan and Republic of Korea also reported an imported case of novel coronavirus.

20 January 2020 - First case in North America was reported and Washington State, USA. US activates the Emergency Operation Centre of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

20 January 2020 - novel coronavirus was included in the statutory report of Class B infectious diseases and border health quarantine infectious diseases in China. 

22 January 2020 - WHO convened an Emergency Committee under International Health Regulations (2005). 

24 January 2020 - The first case in Europe was reported in France. 

25 January 2020 - The first cases in Australia were reported in Melbourne. 

26 January 2020 - The first case in South America was reported in Brazil. 

30 January 2020 - WHO Director-General declared the 2019 nCoV outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) under International Health Regulation 

3rd February 2020- WHO released the first draft of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan.

11 February 2020 - The virus and its disease were officially named. The nCoV was named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2) and it causes COVID-19 disease.

27 February 2020 - WHO updated the case definitions for COVID-19 for suspected, probable or confirmed cases.

11 March 2020 - The WHO Director-General declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic.

13 March 2020 - Europe became the epicentre of the outbreak, with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined, apart from China.