One year ago, authorities declared a global pandemic and our lives changed forever.
Here’re nation journey through pandemic:
- On December 21, 2019, a cluster of patients in China were diagnosed with ‘pneumonia of an unknown cause’.
- Three weeks later came the first death, of a man known to visit wet markets in Wuhan.
- A smattering of cases was diagnosed worldwide and on February 11, 2020, the World Health Organization named the virus Covid-19.
- Two weeks later, a man in his 70s became the first British citizen to die from corona virus.
- Since then Britain has endured some of its darkest days since World War Two, scandals and inspirational figures have emerged.
- World health authorities declared Covid-19 a global pandemic on March 11, 2020.
- On March 16, Boris Johnson announced that everyone should start social distancing and households must quarantine for a fortnight if someone contracts Covid-19. Less than a month later, he in intensive care being treated for the virus.
- The early weeks of the pandemic saw panic-buying on British high streets. Sales of soap rose by 100 per cent, soup by 75 per cent, cold remedies by 64 per cent, rice and noodles by 54 per cent and toilet roll by 45 per cent.
- The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was approved for use and on December 8, at 6.31am, the first dose is given to Grandmother Margaret Keenan.
Today, more than 22 million people in the UK have received their first vaccine dose, and over a million their second. But the Covid-19 death toll, now at nearly 125,000, continues to rise.
