COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic was a worldwide pandemic caused by COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) that began around November 2019 in Wuhan, China. The virus was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30, 2020 and a pandemic on March 11, 2020. An estimated 12-14 million people died of the virus worldwide between 2020 and 2023, and an estimated 2-3 billion people were infected in that same timeframe.

Several COVID-19 vaccines were developed and were first released to the public in December 2020.

As herd immunity and widespread global vaccinations occurred, the severity of the pandemic began to wane in early to mid-2022 and the WHO declared the pandemic over on April 3, 2023.