Covid-19: Total cases so far (updated daily)

PETALING JAYA: The World Health Organization (WHO) was first alerted on Dec 31,2019, to the presence of several pneumonia cases in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China, which did not match any other known virus.

A week later, Chinese authorities confirmed that they had identified a new virus.

The new virus was temporarily named “2019-nCoV.”

On Feb 11, the WHO named the disease caused by 2019-nCoV virus as “Covid-19”, which stands for ‘Corona Virus Disease’.

The virus spread rapidly, and exactly a month later on March 11 the United Nations agency responsible for international public health declared a pandemic – the worldwide spread of a new disease.

Governments worldwide are scrambling to tackle the problem, and one of the key goals is to quickly reduce the number of new cases.

Any outbreak of an infectious disease has a ramping-up period, followed by a peak of intensity, then a decline, giving a bell-shaped curve.

Despite the number of infections, it is important to also note that many people affected by Covid-19 have managed to recover after getting treatment.

Subtracting the number of recoveries – and deaths – from the number of cases in each country allows us to see which countries have the most number of existing cases:

Source: TheStar