Health
Reuters Staff
(Reuters) – Here are some key developments as the novel coronavirus spread around the world:
Dec. 31, 2019: China alerts the World Health Organization of 27 cases of “viral pneumonia” in the central city of Wuhan. Authorities shut down a wet market in Wuhan the next day, after discovering some patients were vendors or dealers.
Jan. 11, 2020: A 61-year-old man is reported as the first death. Preliminary lab tests cited by Chinese state media point to a new type of coronavirus.
Jan. 13: A Chinese woman is quarantined in Thailand, the first detection of the virus outside China.
Jan. 15: Japan confirms its first case.
Jan. 20: South Korea confirms its first case.
Jan. 22: The WHO convenes an emergency meeting. Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says the new coronavirus does not yet constitute an international emergency.
Jan. 23: China issues a lockdown for millions of people in Wuhan and Hubei province as the death toll rises to 18.
Jan. 24: The first cases in Europe are reported in France.
Jan. 25: China bans wildlife trade, and extends the Lunar New Year holiday for workers and schools. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announces measures to limit links with China.
Jan. 27: The United States warns against travel to China, a day after five people who had been in Wuhan become the first confirmed cases in America.
Jan. 30: The WHO declares the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
Feb. 1: The United States, Singapore, Russia and Australia ban foreign travelers who were recently in China.
Feb. 2: A 44-year-old man dies in the Philippines, the first death outside China.
Feb. 3: Investors erase $393 billion from China’s benchmark stock index, selling the yuan and dumping commodities on the first day of trade after the Lunar New Year break.
Feb. 4: Hong Kong reports its first death. Macau shutters casinos. American Airlines Group
AAL.O
and United Airlines Holdings Inc
UAL.O
suspend flights to Hong Kong.
Feb. 5: About 3,700 passengers are quarantined aboard the Diamond Princess, a Carnival Corp
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cruise liner, off Japan. More than 700 passengers test positive and 14 die. The quarantine lasts nearly a month.
Feb. 7: Li Wenliang, a Chinese ophthalmologist who had been reprimanded for issuing an early warning about the Wuhan outbreak, dies, triggering wide public mourning and rare expressions of anger against the government.
Feb. 15: An elderly Chinese tourist hospitalized in France is the first fatality reported in…
Read More: How the global coronavirus pandemic unfolded