Portal:Coronavirus disease 2019
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It has since spread worldwide, leading to an ongoing pandemic.
Preventive measures include physical or social distancing, quarantining, ventilation of indoor spaces, covering coughs and sneezes, hand washing, and keeping unwashed hands away from the face. The use of face masks or coverings has been recommended in public settings to minimise the risk of transmissions. Several vaccines have been developed and various countries have initiated mass vaccination campaigns.
Although work is underway to develop drugs that inhibit the virus, the primary treatment is currently symptomatic. Management involves the treatment of symptoms, supportive care, isolation, and experimental measures. (Full article...)
About the virus
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the respiratory illness responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. Colloquially known as simply the coronavirus, it was previously referred to by its provisional name, 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), and has also been called human coronavirus 2019 (HCoV-19 or hCoV-19).
SARS-CoV-2 is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus (and hence Baltimore class IV) that is contagious in humans. As described by the US National Institutes of Health, it is the successor to SARS-CoV-1, the strain that caused the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. (Full article...)
About the symptoms and spread
Symptoms of COVID-19 are variable, ranging from mild symptoms to severe illness. Common symptoms include headache, loss of smell and taste, nasal congestion and rhinorrhea, cough, muscle pain, sore throat, fever and breathing difficulties. People with the same infection may have different symptoms, and their symptoms may change over time. In people without prior ears, nose, and throat disorders, loss of taste combined with loss of smell is associated with COVID-19 with a specificity of 95%.
As is common with infections, there is a delay, known as the incubation period, between the moment a person first becomes infected and the appearance of the first symptoms. The median incubation period for COVID-19 is four to five days. Most symptomatic people experience symptoms within two to seven days after exposure, and almost all symptomatic people will experience one or more symptoms before day twelve. (Full article...)
COVID-19 spreads from person to person mainly through the respiratory route after an infected person coughs, sneezes, sings, talks or breathes. A new infection occurs when virus-containing particles exhaled by an infected person, either respiratory droplets or aerosols, get into the mouth, nose, or eyes of other people who are in close contact with the infected person. During human-to-human transmission, an average 1000 infectious SARS-CoV-2 virions are thought to initiate a new infection. (Full article...)
Disease progress
Location[a] | Cases[b] | Deaths[c] | Recov.[d] | Ref. | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
World[e] | 85,172,095 | 1,844,153 | 47,913,862 | [2] | |
United States[f] | 20,797,336 | 354,720 | 9,312,768 | [9] | |
India | 10,323,965 | 149,435 | 9,927,310 | [10] | |
Brazil | 7,733,746 | 196,029 | 6,813,008 | [11][12] | |
Russia[g] | 3,260,138 | 58,988 | 2,640,036 | [13] | |
France[h] | 2,655,728 | 65,037 | 195,386 | [14][15] | |
United Kingdom[i] | 2,654,779 | 75,024 | No data | [17] | |
Turkey[j] | 2,241,912 | 21,488 | 2,136,534 | [21] | |
Italy | 2,155,446 | 75,332 | 1,503,900 | [22] | |
Spain[k] | 1,928,265 | 50,837 | No data | [23] | |
Germany[l] | 1,781,053 | 35,105 | 1,381,785 | [25][24] | |
Colombia | 1,675,820 | 43,965 | 1,542,353 | [26] | |
Argentina[m] | 1,640,701 | 43,482 | 1,452,945 | [28] | |
Mexico | 1,448,755 | 127,213 | 1,098,431 | [29] | |
Poland | 1,322,947 | 29,161 | 1,069,554 | [30] | |
Iran | 1,243,434 | 55,540 | 1,013,018 | [31] | |
South Africa | 1,100,748 | 29,577 | 903,679 | [32][33] | |
Ukraine[n] | 1,078,251 | 18,927 | 733,558 | [34][35] | |
Peru | 1,019,475 | 37,830 | 958,682 | [36][37] | |
Netherlands[o] | 821,163 | 11,612 | No data | [39][40] | |
Indonesia | 772,103 | 22,911 | 639,103 | [41] | |
Czech Republic | 740,481 | 11,960 | 612,214 | [42] | |
Belgium[p] | 650,011 | 19,701 | No data | [44][45] | |
Romania | 640,429 | 15,979 | 574,897 | [46][47] | |
Chile[q] | 618,191 | 16,767 | 584,457 | [51] | |
Canada[r] | 601,653 | 15,865 | 504,974 | [54] | |
Iraq | 597,774 | 12,834 | 543,720 | [55] | |
Bangladesh | 516,019 | 7,626 | 460,598 | [56][57] | |
Pakistan | 488,529 | 10,350 | 442,457 | [58] | |
Philippines | 478,761 | 9,263 | 448,279 | [59][60] | |
Switzerland[s] | 452,296 | 7,082 | 317,600 | [61][62] | |
Morocco[t] | 443,146 | 7,485 | 413,393 | [63] | |
Israel[u] | 438,869 | 3,417 | 3817,080 | [64] | |
Sweden | 437,379 | 8,727 | No data | [65] | |
Portugal | 427,254 | 7,118 | 342,535 | [66][67] | |
Austria | 365,768 | 6,324 | 338,831 | [68] | |
Saudi Arabia | 363,061 | 6,246 | 354,443 | [69] | |
Serbia[v] | 343,870 | 3,325 | No data | [70] | |
Hungary | 328,851 | 9,977 | 174,070 | [71] | |
Jordan | 298,208 | 3,903 | 276,485 | [72] | |
Nepal | 261,859 | 1,878 | 254,494 | [73] | |
Panama | 253,736 | 4,140 | 201,816 | [74] | |
Japan[w] | 243,847 | 3,599 | 200,676 | [75] | |
Georgia[x] | 229,169 | 2,603 | 220,442 | [76] | |
Azerbaijan[y] | 220,265 | 2,733 | 194,843 | [77] | |
Ecuador | 214,614 | 14,059 | 190,350 | [78][79] | |
Croatia | 213,319 | 4,126 | 203,294 | [80] | |
United Arab Emirates | 213,231 | 679 | 189,709 | [81] | |
Bulgaria | 203,051 | 7,678 | 122,411 | [82][83] | |
Belarus | 199,962 | 1,451 | 182,630 | [84] | |
Lebanon | 189,278 | 1,499 | 132,768 | [85] | |
Slovakia | 187,463 | 2,317 | 129,994 | [86] | |
Dominican Republic | 173,331 | 2,418 | 132,935 | [87] | |
Costa Rica | 169,321 | 2,185 | 131,923 | [88][89] | |
Denmark[z] | 168,711 | 1,374 | 136,598 | [90][91] | |
Bolivia | 162,661 | 9,201 | 133,237 | [92] | |
Armenia | 160,027 | 2,850 | 144,091 | [93] | |
Kazakhstan | 156,934 | 2,262 | 143,958 | [94][95] | |
Kuwait | 151,343 | 937 | 147,271 | [96] | |
Lithuania | 147,997 | 1,657 | 77,832 | [97][98] | |
Moldova[aa] | 145,873 | 3,037 | 133,247 | [99] | |
Qatar | 144,437 | 245 | 141,808 | [100] | |
Tunisia | 143,544 | 4,700 | 107,049 | [101] | |
Egypt[ab] | 142,187 | 7,805 | 113,898 | [102] | |
Palestine | 141,219 | 1,470 | 121,563 | [103] | |
Greece | 140,099 | 4,957 | No data | [104] | |
Guatemala | 138,475 | 4,833 | 127,450 | [105] | |
Oman | 129,404 | 1,501 | 122,266 | [106] | |
Myanmar | 126,345 | 2,728 | 109,548 | [107] | |
Ethiopia | 125,622 | 1,948 | 112,367 | [108][109] | |
Slovenia | 125,086 | 2,803 | No data | [110][111] | |
Honduras | 123,369 | 3,180 | 57,348 | [112][113] | |
Malaysia | 119,077 | 494 | 97,218 | [114] | |
Venezuela | 114,083 | 1,032 | 108,086 | [115] | |
Bosnia and Herzegovina | 112,645 | 4,131 | 77,891 | [116] | |
Paraguay | 109,073 | 2,292 | 84,837 | [117] | |
Ireland | 101,887 | 2,259 | 24,000 | [118][119] | |
Libya | 101,414 | 1,510 | 74,381 | [120] | |
Algeria | 100,408 | 2,772 | 67,808 | [121] | |
Kenya | 96,802 | 1,685 | 79,073 | [122] | |
Bahrain | 93,478 | 352 | 90,686 | [123] | |
Nigeria | 90,080 | 1,311 | 75,044 | [124] | |
China[ac] | 87,150 | 4,634 | 82,105 | [125] | |
North Macedonia | 84,024 | 2,530 | 62,929 | [126] | |
Kyrgyzstan | 81,305 | 1,359 | 76,563 | [127] | |
Uzbekistan | 77,231 | 614 | 75,358 | [128] | |
Puerto Rico | 73,399 | 1,545 | No data | [129][130] | |
South Korea | 64,264 | 981 | 45,240 | [131][132] | |
Albania | 59,438 | 1,193 | 34,648 | [133][134] | |
Singapore | 58,662 | 29 | 58,476 | [135] | |
Ghana | 55,064 | 335 | 53,828 | [136] | |
Afghanistan | 52,586 | 2,211 | 42,175 | [137] | |
Kosovo | 51,731 | 1,340 | 42,215 | [138] | |
Norway[ad] | 50,266 | 436 | 37,658 | [141] | |
Montenegro | 49,915 | 689 | 39,273 | [142] | |
Luxembourg | 46,838 | 503 | 40,978 | [143] | |
El Salvador | 46,803 | 1,358 | 41,787 | [144] | |
Sri Lanka | 44,774 | 213 | 37,252 | [145][146] | |
Latvia | 42,497 | 680 | 30,501 | [147] | |
Finland[ae] | 36,772 | 561 | 26,000 | [150] | |
Uganda | 35,922 | 274 | 12,037 | [151][152] | |
Estonia | 29,521 | 251 | 19,453 | [153][154] | |
Australia[af] | 28,381 | 909 | 25,486 | [155] | |
Cameroon | 25,849 | 448 | 24,892 | [156][157] | |
Namibia | 25,116 | 215 | 21,055 | [158] | |
Sudan | 23,316 | 1,468 | 13,524 | [159][160] | |
Ivory Coast | 22,490 | 137 | 21,934 | [161] | |
Cyprus[ag] | 22,019 | 119 | 2,057 | [162][163] | |
Zambia | 20,997 | 390 | 18,773 | [164][165] | |
Uruguay[ah] | 20,823 | 204 | 15,125 | [166][167] | |
Senegal | 19,511 | 416 | 17,433 | [168] | |
Mozambique | 19,039 | 169 | 16,765 | [169] | |
DR Congo[ai] | 18,101 | 596 | 14,716 | [170] | |
Madagascar | 17,714 | 261 | 17,228 | [171] | |
Angola | 17,553 | 405 | 11,044 | [172] | |
French Polynesia | 16,926 | 114 | 5,167 | [173][174] | |
Zimbabwe | 15,265 | 380 | 11,574 | [175] | |
Mauritania | 14,794 | 358 | 12,136 | [176] | |
Maldives | 13,867 | 48 | 13,190 | [177] | |
Donetsk PR[aj] | 13,703 | 1,241 | 8,018 | [178] | |
Guinea | 13,630 | 80 | 13,039 | [179][180] | |
Malta | 13,082 | 220 | 11,275 | [181] | |
Tajikistan | 13,071 | 89 | 12,536 | [182] | |
Jamaica | 12,750 | 298 | 10,252 | [183][184] | |
Botswana[ak] | 12,340 | 40 | 11,627 | [186] | |
Cape Verde | 11,920 | 113 | 11,580 | [187] | |
Cuba[al] | 11,863 | 146 | 10,125 | [188][189] | |
Syria[am] | 11,710 | 729 | 5,546 | [190] | |
Belize | 10,370 | 226 | 8,933 | [191] | |
Haiti | 10,077 | 236 | 8,657 | [192] | |
Eswatini | 9,943 | 231 | 7,113 | [193] | |
Gabon | 9,510 | 64 | 9,356 | [194] | |
Hong Kong | 8,965 | 150 | 8,011 | [195] | |
Rwanda | 8,676 | 101 | 6,752 | [196][197] | |
Thailand | 8,439 | 65 | 4,352 | [198][199] | |
Andorra | 8,192 | 84 | 7,517 | [200] | |
Bahamas[an] | 7,788 | 169 | 6,166 | [201][202] | |
Abkhazia[ao] | 7,504 | 100 | 5,545 | [203] | |
Guam[ap] | 7,257 | 121 | 6,707 | [9][204] | |
Mali | 7,226 | 276 | 4,807 | [205] | |
Trinidad and Tobago | 7,168 | 127 | 6,690 | [206][207] | |
Malawi | 6,844 | 195 | 5,715 | [208] | |
Congo[aq] | 6,571 | 100 | 4,988 | [209][210] | |
Suriname | 6,393 | 123 | 5,883 | [211] | |
Guyana | 6,358 | 164 | 5,899 | [212] | |
Nicaragua | 5,938 | 163 | 4,225 | [213] | |
Djibouti | 5,789 | 61 | 5,681 | [214] | |
Iceland | 5,754 | 29 | 5,578 | [215] | |
Burkina Faso | 5,649 | 77 | 4,018 | [216][217] | |
Aruba | 5,564 | 49 | 5,209 | [218] | |
Equatorial Guinea | 5,277 | 86 | 5,136 | [219] | |
Central African Republic | 4,948 | 63 | 1,924 | [220][221] | |
Somalia[ar] | 4,690 | 127 | 3,605 | [222] | |
Curaçao | 4,294 | 16 | 2,950 | [223] | |
The Gambia | 3,797 | 124 | 3,668 | [224] | |
Togo | 3,683 | 68 | 3,457 | [225] | |
South Sudan | 3,540 | 63 | 3,131 | [226][227] | |
Niger | 3,323 | 102 | 1,825 | [228][229] | |
Lesotho | 3,206 | 65 | 1,496 | [230][231] | |
Benin | 3,167 | 44 | 3,061 | [232][233] | |
Jersey | 2,821 | 44 | 2,342 | [234] | |
Sierra Leone | 2,673 | 76 | 1,910 | [235][236] | |
Guinea-Bissau | 2,447 | 44 | 2,337 | [237][238] | |
Yemen | 2,436 | 660 | 1,580 | [239] | |
San Marino | 2,428 | 59 | 2,042 | [240] | |
Gibraltar | 2,406 | 8 | 1,447 | [241] | |
Liechtenstein | 2,175 | 39 | 1,810 | [242] | |
South Ossetia[as] | 2,163 | 39 | 1,167 | [243][244] | |
New Zealand | 2,116 | 25 | 1,680 | [245] | |
Chad | 2,113 | 104 | 1,704 | [246] | |
Luhansk PR[aj] | 2,059 | 170 | 1,720 | [247] | |
U.S. Virgin Islands | 2,042 | 23 | 1,920 | [248] | |
Liberia | 1,779 | 83 | 1,406 | [249] | |
Vietnam | 1,494 | 35 | 1,339 | [250] | |
Sint Maarten | 1,462 | 27 | 1,360 | [251] | |
Northern Cyprus[at] | 1,412 | 6 | 1,225 | [252] | |
Somaliland[au] | 1,354 | 47 | 1,200 | [253][254] | |
Eritrea | 1,320 | 3 | 676 | [255] | |
Mongolia | 1,215 | 1 | 830 | [256] | |
Artsakh[av] | 1,130 | 30 | 337 | [257][258] | |
USS Theodore Roosevelt[ap] | 1,102 | 1 | 751 | [259][260] | |
Charles de Gaulle[aw] | 1,081 | 0 | 0 | [261] | |
São Tomé and Príncipe | 1,024 | 17 | 981 | [265] | |
Turks and Caicos Islands | 910 | 6 | 783 | [266] | |
Comoros | 864 | 13 | 732 | [267] | |
Taiwan[ax] | 815 | 7 | 696 | [269] | |
Burundi | 760 | 2 | 687 | [270] | |
Bhutan | 716 | 0 | 450 | [271] | |
Diamond Princess[w] | 712 | 14 | 653 | [272][273] | |
Papua New Guinea | 681 | 7 | 588 | [274] | |
Bermuda | 622 | 10 | 478 | [275] | |
Faroe Islands | 619 | 0 | 564 | [276][277] | |
Monaco | 573 | 3 | 497 | [278] | |
Mauritius | 527 | 10 | 496 | [279] | |
Barbados | 395 | 7 | 319 | [280] | |
Cambodia | 382 | 0 | 362 | [281] | |
Isle of Man[ay] | 380 | 25 | 345 | [282] | |
Saint Lucia | 353 | 5 | 289 | [283] | |
Cayman Islands | 338 | 2 | 294 | [284] | |
Guernsey | 300 | 13 | 279 | [285] | |
Seychelles | 202 | 0 | 184 | [286][287] | |
Antigua and Barbuda | 158 | 5 | 148 | [288][289] | |
Brunei | 150 | 3 | 145 | [290][291] | |
Costa Atlantica | 148 | 0 | 148 | [292][293] | |
Bonaire | 142 | 3 | 138 | [294] | |
Greg Mortimer[ah] | 128 | 1 | No data | [295][296] | |
Grenada | 127 | 1 | 107 | [297] | |
Northern Mariana Islands | 122 | 2 | 32 | [298][299] | |
Saint Vincent and The Grenadines | 119 | 0 | 94 | [300][301] | |
Dominica | 96 | 0 | 87 | [302][303] | |
British Virgin Islands | 72 | 1 | 70 | [304] | |
Antarctica | 58 | 0 | 0 | [305] | |
Fiji | 49 | 2 | 44 | [306][307] | |
Macau | 46 | 0 | 46 | [308] | |
Laos | 41 | 0 | 40 | [309][310] | |
New Caledonia | 40 | 0 | 30 | [311] | |
Saint Kitts and Nevis | 32 | 0 | 29 | [312][313] | |
Sahrawi Arab DR[az] | 31 | 3 | 27 | [314] | |
East Timor | 30 | 0 | 30 | [315] | |
Vatican City | 29 | 0 | 27 | [316][317] | |
Falkland Islands | 29 | 0 | 17 | [318] | |
Greenland | 27 | 0 | 21 | [319][320] | |
Sint Eustatius | 18 | 0 | 18 | [321] | |
Solomon Islands | 17 | 0 | 5 | [322][323] | |
Saint Pierre and Miquelon | 16 | 0 | 12 | [324][325] | |
Anguilla | 13 | 0 | 12 | [326] | |
Montserrat | 13 | 1 | 12 | [327] | |
MS Zaandam[ba] | 13 | 4 | No data | [330][331] | |
Coral Princess[bb] | 12 | 3 | No data | [333] | |
SeaDream I[bc] | 9 | 0 | No data | [334][335] | |
HNLMS Dolfijn[bd] | 8 | 0 | 8 | [336][339] | |
Saba | 5 | 0 | 5 | [340] | |
Marshall Islands | 4 | 0 | 2 | [341][342] | |
Wallis and Futuna | 4 | 0 | 1 | [343][344] | |
American Samoa | 3 | 0 | 0 | [345] | |
Samoa | 2 | 0 | 0 | [346] | |
Vanuatu | 1 | 0 | 1 | [347] | |
Tanzania[be] | No data | No data | No data | [349][350] | |
As of 25 December 2020 (UTC) · History of cases · History of deaths | |||||
Notes
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National responses
A total of 191[2] countries and territories have had at least one case of COVID-19 so far. Due to the pandemic in Europe, many countries in the Schengen Area have restricted free movement and set up border controls. National reactions have included containment measures such as quarantines and curfews (known as stay-at-home orders, shelter-in-place orders, or lockdowns). The WHO's recommendation on curfews and lockdowns is that they should be short-term measures to reorganize, regroup, rebalance resources, and protect health workers who are exhausted. To achieve a balance between restrictions and normal life, the long-term responses to the pandemic should consist of strict personal hygiene, effective contact tracing, and isolating when ill. (Full article...)
Videos
Animation describing the structure of a coronavirus
Video about what SARS-CoV-2 does to the human body
Video about the transmission of coronaviruses
Recent news
- 2 January 2021 – COVID-19 pandemic
- New York surpasses one million cases of COVID-19, becoming the fourth state to do so after Texas, California, and Florida. (Bloomberg)
- 1 January 2021 – COVID-19 pandemic
- France announces that they will tighten curfews in 15 departments beginning tomorrow at 6:00 p.m. local time in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19. (France 24)
- 31 December 2020 – COVID-19 pandemic
- A further 20 million people in England are placed into Tier 4, the level with the strictest COVID-19 restrictions. All secondary schools in England are to remain closed for an additional two weeks. (BBC)
- 30 December 2020 – COVID-19 pandemic
- Taiwan reports its first case of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2 after a teenager who returned from the United Kingdom on Sunday tested positive for COVID-19 the following day. (Focus Taiwan News Channel)
- 28 December 2020 – COVID-19 pandemic
- Spain surpasses 50,000 deaths from COVID-19. (Anadolu Agency)
- 26 December 2020 – COVID-19 pandemic
- The German state of Saxony-Anhalt begins a vaccination campaign against COVID-19, which also began nationwide. A 101-year-old woman in a nursing home become one of first people in the country to get vaccinated. (DW)
- Hungary begins a vaccination campaign against COVID-19 using the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine tozinameran. The first vaccinations are being delivered at two hospitals in Budapest. (Reuters)(More news...)
Did you know?
- ... that a vote of no confidence was successfully brought against the Kurti cabinet following a cabinet minister's dismissal over disagreements on how to manage the coronavirus pandemic in Kosovo?
- ... that months into the Philippines' coronavirus quarantine, the Bureau of Immigration Bicutan Detention Center remained grossly overcrowded, with only two pregnant women having been bailed?
- ... that infectious disease specialist Daniel R. Lucey has hypothesised that the SARS-CoV-2 virus responsible for the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak may have been quietly circulating among humans since at least November 2019?
- ... that the Association of Black Cardiologists has shared resources on the impact of coronavirus disease on black communities in response to the higher death rates seen among African Americans?
- ... that UCLA basketball player Natalie Chou said that the use of a slang term for COVID-19 created "unnecessary xenophobia for people who look like me"?
- ... that in response to the Hong Kong government refusing to close its border with mainland China to contain COVID-19, Winnie Yu organized a labour strike among hospital workers in February 2020?(More DYK?...)
Data maps
- Cases and deaths
- Total confirmed cases by reporting area3,000 + per 100,000 inhabitants1,000–3,00 per 100,000 inhabitants300–1,000 per 100,000 inhabitants100–300 per 100,000 inhabitants30–100 per 100,000 inhabitants0–30 per 100,000 inhabitantsNone or no data
- Total confirmed deaths by country100+ per million inhabitants10–100 per million inhabitants1–10 per million inhabitants0.1–1 per million inhabitants0.01–0.1 per million inhabitantsNone or no data
Economic impact
The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching economic consequences beyond the spread of the disease itself and efforts to quarantine it. As the SARS-CoV-2 virus has spread around the globe, concerns have shifted from supply-side manufacturing issues to decreased business in the services sector. The pandemic caused the largest global recession in history, with more than a third of the global population at the time being placed on lockdown.
Global stock markets fell on 24 February 2020 due to a significant rise in the number of COVID-19 cases outside mainland China. By 28 February 2020, stock markets worldwide saw their largest single-week declines since the 2008 financial crisis. Global stock markets crashed in March 2020, with falls of several percent in the world's major indices. (Full article...)
Workplace
Hazard controls for COVID-19 in workplaces are the application of occupational safety and health methodologies for hazard controls to the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The proper hazard controls in the workplace depend on the worksite and job task, based on an occupational risk assessment of sources of exposure, disease severity in the community, and risk factors of individual workers who may be vulnerable to contracting COVID-19.
OSHA considers healthcare and mortuary workers exposed to known or suspected person with COVID-19 to be at high exposure risk, which increases to very high exposure risk if workers perform aerosol-generating procedures on, or collect or handle specimens from, known or suspected person with COVID-19. Hazard controls appropriate for these workers include engineering controls such as negative pressure ventilation rooms, and personal protective equipment appropriate to the job task. (Full article...)
Misinformation
The pandemic has resulted in misinformation and conspiracy theories about the scale of the pandemic and the origin, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of the disease. False information, including intentional disinformation, has been spread through social media, text messaging, and mass media. It has also been reportedly spread by covert operations backed by states to generate panic and sow distrust in other countries. Journalists have been arrested for allegedly spreading fake news about the pandemic. It has also been propagated by celebrities, politicians, and other prominent public figures. A Cornell University study found that US President Donald Trump was "likely the largest driver" of the COVID-19 misinformation infodemic in English-language media. (Full article...)
Testing
COVID-19 testing involves analyzing samples to assess the current or past presence of SARS-CoV-2. The two main branches detect either the presence of the virus or of antibodies produced in response to infection. Tests for viral presence are used to diagnose individual cases and to allow public health authorities to trace and contain outbreaks. Antibody tests instead show whether someone once had the disease. They are less useful for diagnosing current infections because antibodies may not develop for weeks after infection. It is used to assess disease prevalence, which aids the estimation of the infection fatality rate. (Full article...)
Vaccine research
Drug research
Images
Scanning electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2 (centre, yellow)
Topics
Category
Get involved!
Get involved by joining WikiProject COVID-19. We discuss collaborations and all manner of issues on our talk page. As of 4 January 2021, there are 1,532 articles within the project's scope. A full list is available here.
References
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Related portals
Associated Wikimedia
Scholia has a profile for SARS-CoV-2 (Q82069695). |