Many people will be bewildered by the rapid pace of change in the way our lives have been turned upside down.
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How did we get here?
It began three months ago on New Year Eve when cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown causes were detected in Wuhan City, Hubei,China. China alerted the World Health Organisation China Country Office.
A local seafood wholesale market was quickly identified with the majority of early cases and a day later the market was closed for environmental sanitation and disinfection.
China launched a national emergency response and on January 2, the incident management system of the WHO was activated. In four days January there were 44 people identified with the new pneumonia.
Within a week China announced a novel type of coronavirus (later called SARS CoV-2) as a cause of the outbreak and shared the genetic sequence with the world's scientists.
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On January 13 it went international as Thailand reported its first case, a man returning from Wuhan. Within days it reached Japan and Korea, the US on the 20th and Australia had its first case (also from Wuhan) on the 25th.
As the outbreak progressed in China, the main strategy was to reduce the intensity of the epidemic and to slow down the increase in cases. China put in place legal measures to support control.
Temperature checks, health care declarations, and quarantine were instituted at transportation depots and wildlife markets were closed and wildlife captive-breeding facilities cordoned off.
On January 30 the WHO declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
On February 11 The virus, and the disease it causes, were officially named.
The novel coronavirus was named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the disease it causes COVID-19.
By month's end the number of cases, and the countries with cases, has increased rapidly with Iran and Italy badly affected.
On March 11 the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, and it was only a matter of time when Australia, then with 128 cases and three deaths shut down.