6 months into the coronavirus pandemic, 9 maps and charts show how it took over the world

Morgan McFall-JohnsenJul 18, 2020, 23:04 IST

Workers collect samples from homeless people during a Miami-Dade County testing operation for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in downtown Miami, Florida, April 16, 2020.Marco Bello/Reuters

Six months ago, Chinese officials in Wuhan reported the coronavirus outbreak to the World Health Organization.
In just half a year, the COVID-19 virus has traveled across the globe, spread under the radar, and revealed the flaws of delayed responses.
These nine maps and charts show how the pandemic has evolved so far — and what to expect next.

It's been six months since China first told the World Health Organization about a new outbreak of mysterious, severe pneumonia cases.

Since that report set off alarm bells on December 31, the coronavirus has spread across the globe, forced a third of the world's population to shelter at home, and killed more than 512,000 people.

After half a year of dealing with the virus, the numbers offer a clearer picture of how it spread and how the world responded to it.

Here's what the data reveals about the pandemic so far.

In the six months since China reported the first coronavirus cases to the WHO, more than 10.5 million people have gotten sick. But of course, those are just the confirmed cases — the true number is likely far higher.

Rampant community spread prompted unprecedented nationwide lockdowns in March and April, affecting a third of the global population.

As more people died, the COVID-19 death rate increased. However, the virus almost certainly doesn't kill 5.8% of the people it infects.

Ruobing Su/Business Insider

Limited testing means that many countries identify most of their severe and deadly cases, but few of their mild cases. That means that the case fatality rate — a calculation of the number of known deaths out of the total number of confirmed cases — is artificially high.

Because coronavirus cases progress over a period of weeks, and because the numbers are constantly changing, the case fatality rate is always in flux.

Experts think the true death rate is closer to 1% — which is still 10 times higher than that of seasonal flu.

Because coronavirus cases progress over a period of weeks, and because the numbers are constantly changing, the case fatality rate is always in flux.

Experts think the true death rate is closer to 1% — which is still 10 times higher than that of seasonal flu.

Once the coronavirus arrived in the US, it spread rapidly and largely undetected.

New York had the largest outbreak in the US during the first surge of infections.

But in most other states, a new surge has followed the reopening of businesses and loosening of restrictions.

Though testing has ramped up, the increase in daily COVID-19 tests does not account for the increase in daily case counts.

Andy Kiersz/Business Insider

As they roll back or delay their reopenings, several governors have said that the rising case counts can't be due to better testing alone. If that were the case, the portion of tests coming back positive would remain about the same.

Instead, in many states and cities with growing outbreaks, 20% or more of COVID-19 tests are returning positive results. Nationwide, the rate of positive tests has increased daily since June 16, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

The US has become a global outlier along with Brazil, where cases have skyrocketed since May.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO's director-general, said this week that "globally, the pandemic is actually speeding up." He warned that the worst is yet to come.

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