At the end of December 2019, Chinese public health authorities reported several cases of acute respiratory syndrome in Wuhan City, Hubei province, China. Chinese scientists soon identified a novel coronavirus as the main causative agent. The disease is now referred to as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and the causative virus is called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Coronaviruses are viruses that circulate among animals with some of them also known to infect humans. Bats are considered natural hosts of these viruses though several other species of animals are also known to act as sources. Zoonotic coronaviruses have emerged in recent years to cause human outbreaks, such as the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) since 2012.
The statistics reported in Data Planet are drawn from weekly updates published by ECDC on COVID-19 cases and deaths caused by COVID-19 reported worldwide and aggregated by week. The date represents an "as of date," meaning number of new cases, etc., as of that date, which is the ending Sunday of the reference week. Every week between Monday and Wednesday, a team of epidemiologists screen up to 500 relevant sources to collect the latest figures. The data screening is followed by ECDC’s standard epidemic intelligence process for which each data entry is validated and documented. National updates are published at different times and in different time zones. This, and the time ECDC needs to process these data, might lead to discrepancies between the national numbers and the numbers published by ECDC. Users are advised to use all data with caution and awareness of their limitations. Data are subject to retrospective corrections; corrected datasets are released as soon as processing of updated national data has been completed. Note that ECDC published daily data through 14 December 2020, which is available elsewhere in Data Planet.
Data Planet also includes COVID-19 data released daily by the Public Health Agency of Canada and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
For official Coronavirus Disease information, guidelines, and datasets, visit these websites:
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COVID-19 gripped countries around the world in early 2020, and the data provided by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control shows the pervasiveness of the disease.
The ECDC also reports on the new deaths as a result of COVID-19, based on information provided by each country.
Which countries topped the charts in terms of administering COVID-19 tests? The data provided by the ECDC sheds some light on this: