Times of CORONA - The Beginning

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

As the second decade of the 21st century was passing bye, it left the planet with a pandemic that would change lives as we knew it. Sometime in Dec-2019, a previously unknown virus started spreading from the Hubei province of China. Within couple of months the viral infection had turned deadly and almost entire planet was under its grip. Nearly 3 billion people globally were under lock down as on 30th March 2020, in their homes under orders from government authorities. All countries on the planet, except may be the Chinese, were still uncertain about how to stop this contagion, which was declared a "Pandemic" by WHO in a press conference on 11th March 2020, Earth's apex body for  global / international health matters.

We live in times of information technology and data sciences. The timeline being well documented by WHO as well as by many others and could be found very easily over internet. Yet for the continuity of the narrative and convenience of the readers, some of the key events that have happened till date have been listed below:

Nov - Dec 2019 and Jan 2019 - The first cases were reported in Wuhan, most probably originating from its Huanan Seafood Market though at that time it was not identified as corona virus. Incidentally Wuhan city is home to Wuhan Institute of Virology which is one of the largest virus research facilities in the world currently with a stated objective of  " to become the prevention & control research and development center for China's newly born diseases". Hey I am not judging, time shall reveal many things.

Jan 2020 - In the beginning of the month, it became clear that this was a new virus which is contagious. China specially Hubei province was the worst affected. Researches ware being conducted and virus was being decoded. However outside WHO and China, people had little idea what's going on. By the end of the month, Covid-19 disease had spread across the countries and continents including India with most of China under lock down and Wuhan severely affected.