Topline: The COVID-19
coronavirus outbreak has now been contracted by over 1 million people globally
since it emerged in China around December 2019 and was declared a
pandemic by the World Health Organization on March 11, according to Johns Hopkins University.
It’s caused 51,485 deaths and resulted in 208,949 recoveries.
·
The landmark illustrates the rapid, exponential growth of the
virus: a week ago, on March 26,
the number of confirmed cases crossed half a million, and a month before that,
it was only at 82,700.
·
China (82,432 cases) has fallen behind Germany (84,600), Spain
(110,238), Italy (115,242) and the United States (236,339) as the hardest-hit
countries in the pandemic. While Germany, Spain and Italy are under national
lockdowns, several states in the U.S. remain open, with Florida, a state with
one of the oldest and most vulnerable populations in the country, only just now
enacting a stay-at-home order on April 1.
·
Italy and Spain are the sites of the deadliest outbreak with
13,915 and 10,096 deaths, respectively, while the U.S. has recorded 5,648
deaths, though the White House on March 31 said
to expect between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths even with full mitigation
policies.
·
According to Agence
France-Presse, an estimated one-third of the world's population is
under some form of lockdown to slow the spread of the virus. Wuhan, China,
where the virus is believed to have originated, has recently loosened its
stringent quarantine that went into effect January 23 as cases have slowed
across the country.
·
With global lockdowns, the coronavirus has greatly impacted the
economy, especially in the U.S. where stocks have tanked more than 20% in
the worst quarterly
decline since 1987, leading to a record 6.65 million
unemployment claims for the week ending March 28 and mass layoffs.
In reaction, President Trump signed a bipartisan $2 trillion stimulus
bill on March 27,
the largest aid package in history.
·
A number of
major figures including United Kingdom's Prime Minister Boris
Johnson have tested positive for the virus. Public figures easily getting tests
have drawn some criticism given the shortages of tests in countries like the
U.S.
Crucial
Quote: "Over the past five weeks, we have witnessed a near
exponential growth in the number of new cases, reaching almost every country,
territory and area,” said World Health Organization Director-General Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a briefing Wednesday, where he warned of the
Key Background: Wuhan doctor Li
Wenliang was integral in sharing news to the public about a
"SARS-like" disease in December 2019. Police officially reprimanded
him for his viral posts and forced him to sign a letter accusing him of
"spreading rumors online" and "severely disrupting social
order." The virus spread globally through January and February, with Li
contracting the disease and dying in early February.
Tangent: Countries like
South Korea have found success mitigating the outbreak, partly in the sheer
amount of tests run and partly through contact tracing, which helps people find
out if they've been exposed to others infected with the virus. Bill Gates,
the world's second-richest person, has been in favor of some sort of national
tracking system to predict and prevent spread. There's been a
number of smartphone apps attempting to do just that, but questions arise
over user privacy.
Big Number: 500 million. That's
how many people were infected during the 1918 influenza
pandemic, which at the time was a third of the world's population.
Over 50 million people were believed to have died.
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