How the coronavirus
has spread around China, three other Asian countries and the United States since emerging in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
31 December 2019
The World Health Organization (WHO) is alerted by the Chinese authorities of a string of pneumonia-like cases in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people.
Patients are quarantined and work begins on identifying the origin of the pneumonia.
1 January 2020
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identifies a seafood market suspected to be at the centre of the outbreak and it is closed down.
9 January
The WHO says the outbreak in Wuhan was caused by a previously unknown type of coronavirus, a broad family ranging from the common cold to more serious illnesses like severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars).
11 January
The Chinese health authorities report the
first fatality as a 61-year-old man dies from pneumonia in Wuhan. They revise downwards the number of sick people to 41.
13 January
The virus spreads beyond China’s borders for the first time with a case emerging in Thailand, according to the WHO. The victim is a Chinese woman diagnosed with mild pneumonia who was returning from a trip to Wuhan.
15 January
China’s health commission says it cannot confirm human-to-human transmission of the virus but the possibility “cannot be excluded”. The next day a first case of the virus is confirmed in Japan in someone who had stayed in Wuhan in early January.
17 January
A second person, a 69-year-old man, dies in Wuhan, according to authorities. The same day, the CDC announces that it will begin screening passengers arriving from Wuhan at three airports: San Francisco, New York’s JFK and Los Angeles.
20 January
A third death and more than 100 new cases are announced in
China, sparking concerns ahead of the annual lunar new year holiday which begins on 25 January and during which hundreds of millions of Chinese people travel nationwide.
More than 200 cases have been recorded with cases reported in Beijing in the north, Shanghai in the east and Shenzhen in the south. The virus is also detected in South Korea in a Chinese person who has arrived by plane from Wuhan.
In his first public comments on the outbreak, China’s president Xi Jinping says the virus must be “resolutely contained”.
Human-to-human transmission is “affirmative”, a top Chinese expert on infectious diseases, Zhong Nanshan, tells state broadcaster CCTV.
21 January
Health officials in Washington state report the first case in the US. The man is in his 30s and is in good condition at a hospital in Everett, Washington, after returning to the area last week from China. He was believed to have travelled to the Wuhan area.
22 January
European airports from London to Moscow step up checks on flights from Wuhan.
The WHO’s chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,
says he is postponing a decision on whether or not to declare a global health emergency. “I have decided to ask the emergency committee to meet again tomorrow to continue their discussion,” he said, referring to a group of international experts who met for several hours at the WHO in Geneva.
23 January
As Chinese authorities say 17 people have died and more than 500 have been infected,
air and rail departures from Wuhan are suspended.
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