Epidemiology

For country-level data, see:

COVID-19 pandemic by country and

territory

Cases
112,553,181
Deaths
2,497,406
As of 25 February 2021[4]

Africa · Asia · Europe · North America
Oceania · South America

Background
Although it is still unknown exactly where the outbreak first started, many early
cases of COVID-19 have been attributed to people who have visited the Huanan
Seafood Wholesale Market, located in Wuhan, Hubei, China.[12] On 11 February
2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) named the disease "COVID-19",
which is short for coronavirus disease 2019.[13][14] The virus that caused the outbreak
is known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), a
newly discovered virus closely related to bat coronaviruses,
[15]
 pangolin coronaviruses,[16][17] and SARS-CoV.[18] Scientific consensus is that
COVID-19 is a zoonotic virus that arose from bats in a natural setting.[19][20][21]
The earliest known person with symptoms was later discovered to have fallen ill on
1 December 2019, and that person did not have visible connections with the
later wet market cluster.[22][23] However, an earlier case of infection could have
occurred on 17 November.[24] Of the early cluster of cases reported that month, two
thirds were found to have a link with the market. [25][26][27] There are several theories
about when and where the very first case (the so-called patient zero) originated.[28]