Thursday marks the one-year anniversary of when the World Heal | Facebook
Thursday marks the one-year anniversary of when the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a “pandemic.”
Unlike an outbreak or epidemic, a pandemic is a disease that is widespread across multiple regions of the world, and affecting a large number of people. The decision to wait until March 11, 2020, to declare the coronavirus a pandemic was debated, as the WHO was accused for not being more proactive in its declaration.
CDC officials on Feb. 24, 2020, warned that the coronavirus would likely become a pandemic.
In the weeks between Feb. 24 and March 11, the world largely continued to function as normal. Travelers boarded air planes and cruise ships, sports fans packed stadiums, entertainers graced stages. But those interactions helped fuel a rapid spread of a deadly virus.
According to Johns Hopkins University’s global coronavirus tracker, more than 117 million cases of the coronavirus have been reported, killing more than 2.6 million people.
