On January 11, 2020, a first death officially attributed to Covid-19 was recorded in Wuhan, in central China.
In the space of a year, the latter will be followed by nearly 1.9 million others across the globe.
From this announcement to the confinement of humanity, two months later, a look back at the key beginnings of an unprecedented global health crisis.
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The day when…
It was five years ago to the day. On January 11, 2020, Beijing announced that a first death due to an unknown coronavirus had been recorded two days earlier in Wuhan, a metropolis of 11 million inhabitants in central China.
The very name of this first known victim has never been made public. We simply know that he is a 61-year-old man who visited a market in Wuhan to do his shopping. Considered the first major outbreak of the epidemic, this market was closed on January 1, 2020. Live wild animals were sold there, considered possible transmitters of the virus to humans.
13 days later, first 3 cases in France
A few days before this announcement, the December 31, 2019the World Health Organization (WHO) had become aware of worrying cases of atypical pneumonia in the Chinese city of Wuhan. THE January 7, 2020the cause was identified: a new virus from the coronavirus family. THE January 23, 2020four days after the announcement of the first death, Wuhan was quarantined.
It’s the next day, January 24, 2020that the first three French cases following the discovery of the disease were officially recorded, in Paris and Bordeaux. The patients were a Frenchman of Chinese origin and two Chinese tourists who had stayed in Wuhan, the source of the virus in central China. A fourth patient, an elderly Chinese tourist, was declared on January 28. THE February 7, 2020the first French outbreak of coronavirus was detected in the Haute-Savoie commune of Contamines-Montjoie.
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Covid-19: which countries managed the crisis best in 2020?
The new disease, called Covid-19, is spreading rapidly: from the 6 mars 2020the epidemic exceeds 100,000 official cases worldwide. THE 11 mars 2020the WHO officially describes the epidemic as “pandemic”.
The first European country affected, Italy initially imposed confinement in the North, then extended to the entire territory. On March 16, Germany in turn called on its population to “stay at home” and the United Kingdom to avoid all “contact social”. France, for its part, confined itself on 17 mars 2020. At the same time, the European Union (EU) closed its external borders. At the start of April 2020, more than 3.9 billion people, or half of humanity, were forced or called upon to confine themselves, according to an AFP count. More than a million cases were then recorded. In the space of a year, this first death officially attributed to Covid-19 was followed by nearly 1.9 million others across the globe, and 7 million to date, according to the World Health Organization. health (WHO).
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