COVID-19
Virus Symptoms Preventions Social Distancing Covid Updates
On December 31, 2019, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) China office heard the first reports of a previously-unknown virus behind a number of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, a city in Eastern China with a population of over 11 million.
What started as an epidemic mainly limited to China has now become a truly global pandemic. There have now been over 1,485,981 confirmed cases and 88,567 deaths, according the John Hopkins University Covid-19 dashboard, which collates information from national and international health authorities. The disease has been detected in more than 200 countries and territories, with Italy, the US and Spain experiencing the most widespread outbreaks outside of China. In the UK, there have been 60,733 confirmed cases and 7,097 deaths as of April 8.
The Chinese government responded to the initial outbreak by placing Wuhan and nearby cities under a de-facto quarantine encompassing roughly 50 million people in Hubei province. This quarantine is now slowly being lifted, as authorities watch to see whether cases will rise again. The US is now the new epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak, becoming the first country to surpass China's total confirmed cases. As of April 9, the country has 432,438 confirmed infections and 14,808 deaths. In Italy, where the death toll surpassed that of China on March 19, the government took the unprecedented step of extending a lockdown to the entire country, shutting cinemas, theatres, gyms, discos and pubs and banning funerals and weddings. In the UK, the government has shut schools, pubs, restaurants, bars cafรฉs and all non-essential shops.
On March 23, prime minister Boris Johnson put the UK under lockdown saying that police will now have the power to fine people who gather in groups of more than two or who are outside for non-essential reasons. People with the main coronavirus symptoms – a fever or dry cough – are required to stay at home for seven days while households in which at least one person is displaying symptoms should quarantine themselves for 14 days. Four days later the prime minister and health secretary Matt Hancock both tested positive for the virus – Johnson is currently in intensive care while Hancock has returned after self-isolation.