China implemented extremely stringent quarantine measures for its people which has also allowed other countries time to prepare
1st case in Italy on Feb 21st
early March - panic buying of goods such as toilet paper, pasta, rice, mince meat, paracetamol, scripts causing severe shortages
WHO declares it a pandemic on 11th March 2020
Italy averaging 340 deaths each day in mid-March with a 7-8% mortality rate due to an aged population and an overwhelmed health system - 87% were aged over 70yrs, 75% had
hypertension
50% of a northern Italian hospital's 1000 beds were occupied by Covid-19 cases and ED was seeing 60-90 suspect patients each day. Elective surgeries have been cancelled, semielective procedures postponed, and operating rooms turned into makeshift ICU. Contributing to the resource scarcity is the prolonged intubation many of these patients require as they recover from pneumonia — often 15 to 20 days of mechanical ventilation - in some hospitals the “cutoff age for intubation” was lowered further from 80yrs to 75yrs. Some staff as well as non-infected patients admitted with AMI became infected in hospital. “The rapidity of respiratory deterioration in the most severely affected patients, including some young ones, was striking and often unforeseeable.”
1)
global stock markets crash
Qantas announces cessation of international flights as of end of March 2020 and lays off 20,000 employees
19th March, mass gatherings of more than 100 people indoors and 500 outdoors banned in Australia, resulting in sports being played without crowds, tourist destinations such as The Twelve Apostles Visitor Centre, the 1000 steps, Werribee mansion and Buchan Caves closed.
Australia bans entry of all non-residents as of 9pm 20th March 2020, residents will have to self-isolate for 14 days
22nd March, Aust. PM announces further $66b stimulus package to assist small businesses and those stood down from jobs while the AFL suspends football season at least for several months, while in Italy daily death rates hit around 800 deaths!
WA, SA and NT close borders as of 24th March
Vic and NSW impose lock-down as of 24th March - only essential services open, while schools and non-essential retail, gyms, etc to close
Australia predicted to run out of ICU beds in the 1st week of April hence massive ramp up in ICU capacity planned as well as the substantive efforts to decrease R0
March 2020 modelling suggests possible NSW Covid peaks
2):
without social distancing, peak hospitalisation in July with 16% infected, 35,000 in hospital and 11,800 ICU beds needed
with social distancing, peak hospitalisation in mid-Nov with 5% infected, 14,000 in hospital and 5,100 ICU beds needed (pre-Covid ICU bed capacity was 874 beds in NSW)
3rd April: global confirmed cases pass 1 million; global deaths pass 50,000; UK passes 3000 deaths; Italy has almost 14,000deaths; Spain hits 950 in a day and over 10,000 deaths and over 6,000 in ICU; US at 5,300 deaths;
10th April: 1.7m global cases confirmed with 100,000 deaths; US hits almost 0.5m confirmed and 16,000 deaths, nearly 6,000 in NY city alone; almost 19,000 deaths in Italy, 16,000 in Spain, 13,000 in France while UK is nearly 9,000 and over 900 per day;
15th April: global confirmed cases hit 2 million, doubling in just 14 days, over 600,000 in US
25th April: WHO warns that recovery from coronavirus might not protect a person from reinfection. Global cases exceed 2.86 million and death toll exceeds 200,000.
1st May: study of 16,749 COVID patients in 166 UK hospitals between early February and mid-April
3):
average age was 72yrs, and 35-40% of all admitted patients died from their infection
obesity or dementia increased mortality by nearly 40%
age over 80yrs were 14x more likely to die than those under 50yrs
27th May: over 100,000 deaths in US with 1.7 million infected; Brazil now 2nd highest country overtaking Russia and UK;
8th June: over 7 million infected and 400,000 deaths globally; 2 million in USA with 112,000 deaths; UK deaths now over 40,000 having the 2nd highest per capita death rate of the large countries (highest is Belgium); NZ is declared Covid-free;
28th June: 10 millionth case 180 days after 1st reported case in Wuhan; Brazil, US, Sth Asia are the main areas with high rates of new cases.
10th July: US hits 3 millionth case, over 131,000 deaths, and over 60,000 new cases in a day despite lack of access to testing and 900 deaths; U.S. formally announced it was revoking its membership in the World Health Organisation; Arizona, Florida and Sth Carolina has the highest per capita new case rates in the world, closely followed by Middle East countries such as Bahrain, Qatar and Oman. WHO is sending team to Wuhan in late July to “investigate the virus origins” however major flooding across China including Wuhan may impact this investigation.
18th July: WHO reports global confirmed cases: 237,000 new cases each day, 13.7million cases to date, 588,000 deaths (4%); even with inadequate resting, Brazil hits 2 million confirmed cases, 45,000 new cases per day although rate of increase has plateaued and now suggest R0 is 0.5-1.5 across its states and 2nd highest total confirmed deaths of over 75,000 - these are all likely to be substantial under-estimates; US has 68,000 new cases in a day, total cases exceed 3.5m and deaths exceed 138,000; India has over 1million cases; R0 in UK is now remaining below 1 at 0.7-0.9;
30th July: US deaths exceed 150,000; Victoria hits over 700 new cases in a day, outbreaks in NSW and Qld;
17th Aug: Latin America accounts for 30% of cases; Highest numbers of cases recorded: USA, Brazil, India, Russia, Mexico, UK
20th Aug: almost 30% of New Delhi's 20 million people thought to be infected while only 141,000 confirmed cases have been recorded;
4) 30th Aug: global cases hit 25 million and 839,000 deaths; India hits a global record for daily new cases with 78,761, exceeding 75,000 for 4 straight days and 948 deaths, taking total cases to 3.5 million; US at 5.9 million cases as the Mid-west states become the emerging hot spots; Brazil at 3.8 million; Anti-lockdown riots in Germany, London and other cities; Indonesia reports a new more infectious, but milder D614G mutated strain, this had been identified in Feb by WHO;
16th Sept: India passes 5 million cases and is expected to pass USA's tally of 6.6 million cases within weeks as daily cases exceed 90,000, 6% require oxygen, with daily deaths (mostly in the large cities) at 1290 taking total deaths in India to 82,000;
28th Sept: India at over 80,000 new cases a day and over 1,000 deaths a day although likely an under-estimate, passes 6 million cases; 1 million deaths globally.
1st Nov: UK re-introduces lockdowns too late as daily cases exceed 24,000 and most of Europe having very high new case numbers but surprisingly low reported deaths; US hits 9 million cases, over 230,000 deaths and a record of nearly 100,000 new cases per day; Australia records 1st day of zero community spread new cases for 5 months and Victoria's 2nd wave now well under control.
Dec 2020: vaccines start being rolled out in many countries.
31st Dec 2020:
both UK and USA at over 600 new cases per day per million people and over 10 new deaths per day per million people with over 1 in 1000 people having died thus far! 6% of USA population (ie. 20m) have now been infected based on confirmed cases, and nearly 4% in UK (ie. 2.5m); highest is Andorra with 10% population confirmed to have been infected; UK at over 55,000 new cases per day, over 600 new deaths per day, and 30-50% of acute hospital beds in many hospitals were taken up with those with Covid-19 infections with total hospital cases at nearly 24,000.
new UK variant appears to increase R0 by 0.4-0.7! The effective R0 in UK has been 1.1-1.3;
WHO report over 79 million cases globally to date and 1.7 million deaths; Currently there are 4 million new cases per week and 72,000 new deaths per week globally.
22nd Feb 2021: US passes 500,000 deaths;
18th April: global death toll passes 3 million;
June 2021:
finally India's crisis with the Delta variant seems to be getting under control
5) it is estimated 80% of UK's population now have antibodies to Covid-19 as the Delta strain has become dominant
Brazil records 500,000 deaths
19th July 2021: UK “Freedom Day” - end of laws mandating the wearing of masks and the enforcement of social distancing despite still having over 25000 infections a day.
Aug 2021:
UK: 94% of adults in England have antibodies - 80% have been fully vaccinated (most adults with AZ); over 6.36million cases and over 131,000 deaths and now finally infection rates are falling to 25,000 per day and under 100 deaths per day. Pfizer and Moderna vaccine has just been approved in the UK for children as young as 12;
US new wave: 52% fully vaccinated; 100,000 hospitalised with more than 25% in ICU, 17,000 in Florida, 13,000 in Texas, 9000 California - 94-97% of these are non vaccinated; massive surges of cases and deaths in Florida and other Republican states as they ban masks, etc;
Israel: despite being the earliest with high vaccination rates > 80% adults, they now have the highest per capital daily new infection rates after removing restrictions
19th Sept 2021:
15th Dec 2021: US reaches 800,000 deaths
18th Dec 2021: UK now with an uncontrolled rapidly spreading Omicron wave (R value of 3-5 with doubling every 2-3 days) with daily new cases up from the previous plateau of 40,000/day Delta cases to over 200,000 cases a day although official numbers are 90,000/day
6) 27th Dec 2021: UK hospital admissions with Covid doubling every 10 days, although a third were admitted due to non-Covid conditions
2022: further waves due Delta then Omicron variants
by end of Aug 2022, 6.4 million have died globally, 1 million of these since start of 2022.
2nd half of 2022:
Dec 2022:
latest data
epidemic calculators: