World Health Organization (WHO), a wing of the UnitedNations strives to achieve, 'better health for everyone, everywhere' and it wasestablished on April 7, 1948. The primary function of WHO is to look after the internationalpublic health. WHO was alerted on December 31, 2019 about the mysterious and suspectedpneumonia induced cases in the Chinese City of Wuhan.
Whathappened afterwards?
China confirmed first death on January 11 and the newcoronavirus disease was named as Covid-19. After the disease was known, theWuhan was quarantined and cut off from the world on January 23. France reportedits first case and death of a person outside Asia in February last year.
1 lakh cases were reported by March 6 and Italy was worsehit. Covid-19 was declared as a pandemic by March 11.
Lockdownin Europe:
The Europe was put under lockdown. Spain and France toldtheir people to stay indoors on March 14 and March 17 respectively. Europecloses its borders for all its 27 nations.
Olympic games were postponed on March 24. The games werescheduled for July 2020.
Lockdownacross the globe:
The WHO made a statement that the pandemic threatenedhuman lives. 3.9 billion people were told to stay indoors after the lockdown byApril 2, 2020. According to AFP, it crossed 1 million cases. British PrimeMinister, Boris Johnson was infected.
Economydwindled:
Boeing aircraft of US slashes 16,000 jobs on April 19. USPresident Donald Trump backed Hydroxychloroquine as a potential Covid-19treatment. He demanded the Hydroxychloroquine from India. British scientistrejected Trump's claims.
Globaldeath toll:
The death toll in the world reaches historic 400,000 markby June 7, 2020. US topped the list followed by Brazil. Brazil's President gotinfected by the virus despite calling it a 'little flu.' Another historic markwas achieved when the death toll rose to over 1 million people by September 28.
Mask-Unmask:
Wearing masks became a norm. However, anti-maskdemonstrations were organized in Rome, Paris and London.
Newvariants:
New variant detected in Europe in September. It wastermed as more infectious than the previous one. New lockdown was announced inUK by PM Johnson on January 4.
WHO called it a 'tipping point of the pandemic' and termsthe new variants as 'alarming' on January 7.
Vaccinationsto the rescue:
US Biotech giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTechsay they have a highly successful vaccine on November 9. Similar announcementscame from US firm Moderna, followed by Oxford-Astra Zeneca vaccine.
Britain approved vaccines and became the first country toroll out nationwide vaccination program.
Sputnik-V of Russia and China's Sinopharm and Sinovacalso rolled out but didn't receive full approval.
2Million deaths worldwide:
Now, globally two million deaths were reported on January15,, 2021.