(Credit: Unsplash)
As the world grapples with the increasingly disruptive impact of COVID-19, its origins remain mysterious.
Though differing accounts have been offered, what we know for certain is that the coronavirus was first detected during the final days of 2019 in Wuhan, a Chinese city of about 11 million people in Hubei province – perhaps previously best known in the West as home to the Three Gorges Dam.
Since then, confirmed cases have been reported in more than 55 countries on six different continents. Using data from the World Health Organization and other sources, the World Economic Forum has created a visualization tracking its spread.
What is the World Economic Forum doing about the Coronavirus outbreak?
A new strain of Coronavirus, COVID 19, is spreading around the world, causing deaths and major disruption to the global economy.
Responding to this crisis requires global cooperation among governments, international organizations and the business community, which is at the centre of the World Economic Forum’s mission as the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.
The Forum has launched a new community, bringing together experts from the World Health Organization with business leaders around the world, which will hold regular virtual meetings to boost collaboration.
As an organization, the Forum has a track record of supporting efforts to contain epidemics. In 2017, at our Annual Meeting, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was launched – bringing together experts from government, business, health, academia and civil society to accelerate the development of vaccines. CEPI is currently supporting the race to develop a vaccine against this strand of the Coronavirus.
The WHO began issuing situation reports about a pneumonia of “unknown cause” on 21 January, when 278 of its 282 confirmed cases were in China. The visualization traces the early spread of what eventually became known as COVID-19 within the country.
Below we see Hubei province quickly turn a dark red as the number of confirmed cases there reaches into the hundreds. The shading of other provinces also darkens as their number of reported cases increases. By 1 March there were 80,174 cases in China, according to Chinese government agencies.
Spread of COVID-19 in China.
Image: World Economic Forum
About 3,000 people have died as a result of COVID-19 to date. As of 21 January, there were six reported deaths, all of them in Wuhan. However, confirmed cases had already spread to three other countries in Asia.
Below we see the spread of reported COVID-19 cases throughout Asia over time (Japan’s tally includes those on a cruise ship in Japanese territorial waters). By 1 March the WHO was reporting 84,867 cases in the Western Pacific and South-East Asia regions.
Spread of COVID-19 in Asia.
Image: World Economic Forum
It took a while for Europe to report a significant uptick in confirmed cases. As of 25 January, there were still just three in the region, all in France.
That changed quickly when the number of reported cases in Italy began to spike in late February – an increase that’s reflected below. As of 1 March, the WHO was reporting more than 87,000 European cases in total.
Spread of COVID-19 in Europe.
Image: World Economic Forum
The impact of COVID-19 has now spread across the globe, decimating stock markets, closing schools, and spurring many people to start stockpiling food in anticipation of serious disruptions to their daily lives. Below we see the spread of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide. As of February 27th, the WHO was reporting more than 82,000 cases in total.
Spread of COVID-19 globally.
Image: World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum’s Strategic Intelligence platform contextualizes global issues, industries, and countries in an interactive tool. Many of the topics, including Global Health, feature data visualizations under the “data” tab. You’ll need to register to view.
Discover more global health information and analysis.
Image: World Economic Forum
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