Origins
At the end of December, public health officials from China made a grim announcement to the World Health Organization (WHO) stating that they had come face to face with a grave problem: a previously unknown virus seemed to be plaguing the city of Wuhan causing severe pneumonia-like illness, and death.
We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction. We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic. We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus. This is the first pandemic caused by a coronavirus.