Earth & climate

The WHO declares COVID-19 a pandemic

11 March 2020

On 11 March 2020 the World Health Organization characterised COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, as a pandemic. Within weeks governments closed borders and schools and ordered lockdowns, affecting billions of people. The official death toll passed 7 million, though excess mortality estimates are far higher. Vaccines were developed in under a year, the fastest in history, and the pandemic changed work, travel and healthcare and caused the deepest global recession since the 1930s.

Open on the timeline

Before and after

More in Earth & climate

The era

This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 21st century.