The COVID-19 pandemic, 2019–2023

The COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, from the first reported cluster of pneumonia in Wuhan in December 2019 to the end of WHO’s public health emergency of international concern and of the US public health emergency in May 2023: WHO’s declarations, the spread, measures such as lockdowns, the science and the vaccines, the variants of concern and the waves they drove, and the counts. A sample timeline built from the sources cited on each moment: WHO statements and reports, regulators and public-health agencies, peer-reviewed papers, the Johns Hopkins CSSE and Our World in Data counts, and Wikipedia as the general reference. **How to read it.** Chapter headings mark the phases. Emergencies, lockdowns, waves and events are bands (ochre, navy, brick and grey); everything else is a moment. Green marks science and vaccines, brick the variants, grey the counts. Related things (a variant reported and its designation, an emergency declared and ended) are linked. **Dates and numbers.** Dates are UTC days unless a time is given. Counts are confirmed cases and deaths as reported, which understate the true numbers; WHO’s excess-mortality figure is an estimate and labelled so. Waves are approximate. The origin of the virus has not been established: it remains under investigation and is debated (see WHO’s SAGO reports). Measures are described with their dates, not judged.

100 moments · 2019-12-01T00:00:00Z CE – 2023-05-11T00:00:00Z CE · by @athan · @athan