In the U.S., the Grand Princess cruise ship is held at sea off the coast of California after 21 of the 3,500 people aboard test positive for the virus. March: The WHO characterizes COVID-19 as a pandemic. Countries are restricting travel to contain the virus. The Trump Administration declares a public health emergency.įebruary: Cases of COVID-19 begin to multiply around the world. The patient is a resident of Washington state who had traveled to Wuhan. sees its first case of the disease, later named COVID-19.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, the U.S. Two days later, China puts Wuhan under strict lockdown. January: A scientist in China confirms that a mysterious new pneumonia-like illness identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, can be transmitted from human to human. Here is a month-by-month look at our pandemic year. Burgeoning caseloads overwhelmed hospitals, while health care workers became heroes, putting in long, harrowing hours, often (in those early days) without sufficient supplies, to care for patients with COVID-19. Many of us mourned loved ones in the last year, and the grief, along with isolation to prevent infections, took a toll on our mental health. More than 100 million people around the world have been infected by COVID-19 and more than 2.5 million people have died of the disease. It has been an emotional time marked by startling daily counts of new cases and deaths that multiplied rapidly.

A year later, we look back on one of the most challenging periods in recent memory. The announcement followed a rising sense of alarm in the preceding months over a new, potentially lethal virus that was swiftly spreading around the world. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2, a pandemic.

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