COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019. It was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in January 2020 and a pandemic in March 2020. As of 11 February 2021, more than 107 million cases have been confirmed, with more than 2.35 million deaths attributed to the virus. Symptoms of CO VID-19 are highly variable, ranging from none to life-threatening illness.
About COVID-19 pandemic in brief
The COVID-19 pandemic is an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019. It was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, China. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern in January 2020 and a pandemic in March 2020. As of 11 February 2021, more than 107 million cases have been confirmed, with more than 2.35 million deaths attributed to the virus. Symptoms of CO VID-19 are highly variable, ranging from none to life-threatening illness. The virus spreads mainly through the air when people are near each other. It leaves an infected person as they breathe, cough, sneeze, or speak and enters another person via their mouth, nose, or eyes. People remain infectious for up to two weeks, and can spread the virus even if they do not show symptoms. Recommended preventive measures include social distancing, wearing face masks in public, ventilation and air-filtering, hand washing, covering one’s mouth when sneezing or coughing, disinfecting surfaces, and monitoring and self-isolation for people exposed or symptomatic. Several vaccines are being developed and distributed. Current treatments focus on addressing symptoms while work is underway to develop therapeutic drugs that inhibit the Virus. Authorities worldwide have responded by implementing travel restrictions, lockdowns, workplace hazard controls, and facility closures. The responses to the pandemic have resulted in global social and economic disruption, including the largest global recession since the Great Depression. It has led to the postponement or cancellation of events, widespread supply shortages exacerbated by panic buying, agricultural disruption and food shortages, and decreased emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases.
The pandemic has raised issues of racial and geographic discrimination, xenophobia, health equity, and the balance between public health imperatives and individual rights. There are several theories about when and where the very first case originated. It is possible that the virus first emerged in October 2019. Although it is still unknown exactly where the outbreak first started, many early cases have been attributed to people who have visited the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, located in W Uhan, Hubei, China, in early December 2019. An analysis of the early phase of the outbreak up to 23 January estimated 86 percent of infections had not been detected, and that these undocumented infections were the source for 79 percent of documented cases. On 9 April 2020, preliminary results found that 15 percent of people tested in Gangelt, the centre of a major infection cluster in Germany, tested positive for COvid-19 in pregnant women in New York City and the Netherlands. Screening rates in blood donors also found that positive antibody tests indicate more infections than reported. Some studies show that persons with mild symptoms do not have detectable antibodies. Initial estimates of the basic reproduction of COVID19 in China found that children and adults were just as likely to be infected through basic reproduction as young adults. It’s not clear whether this was because young people were less likely to develop serious symptoms.
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This page is based on the article COVID-19 pandemic published in Wikipedia (as of Feb. 12, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
