Novel Coronavirus
Known as Covid-19, SARS-Cov-2 and simply coronavirus, the virus that is now at the centre of a global pandemic was first identified in Wuhan, China, on December 31, 2019. While most coronaviruses are harmless to humans, Covid-19 represents the latest addition to a small list of coronaviruses that cause considerable harm to humans. Alongside Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), Covid-19 is the most dangerous coronavirus to affect humans. In comparison with the SARS outbreak of 2003, and the MERS outbreak in 2015, Covid-19 has already had an impact which is far worse than either.
Covid-19 Impact
According to the Coronavirus Resource Center at the John Hopkins University of Medicine, the total number of confirmed cases of Covid-19 numbers more than 2,169,022. Patients confirmed to have been infected by the novel coronavirus across the world are as follows:
- United States – 671,425
- Spain – 184,948
- Italy – 168,941
- France – 147,101
- Germany – 138,135
- United Kingdom – 104,155
- China – 83,760
- Iran – 77,995
- Turkey – 74,193
- Belgium – 36,138
As the global pandemic is reaching its peak and government use a variety of metrics to track the numbers of deaths caused by Covid-19, a stable mortality rate is yet to be determined. However, so far, more than 145,000 are known to have died from the virus across the globe. John Hopkins’ have released the following statistics regarding death toll by country:
- Italy – 22,170
- Spain – 19,315
- France – 17,920
- United Kingdom – 13,729
- New York City – 11,477
- Belgium – 5,163
- Iran – 4,869
- Hubei, China – 4,512
- Germany – 4,093
- Netherlands – 3,315
Global Pandemic
As the novel coronavirus made its way across the globe, governments have enacted unprecedented lockdown measures to help curb the spread of the disease. After China’s lockdown measures were chastised as draconian, Western government soon followed suit, bringing the world to a near standstill.