The coronavirus pandemic explained, one year on
On Jan. 19, 2020, CNET posted its first guide to a mystery coronavirus discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan. Dozens of cases and two deaths had been recorded, but as we wrote at the time, little was known about "how destructive the new virus might be." The coronavirus -- and the disease it causes -- hadn't even been named. It hadn't officially been found in the US.
Today we call the mystery pathogen SARS-CoV-2. It's responsible for COVID-19, a respiratory illness that has infected over 100 million people. In just one year, we've gone from two deaths to 2 million, across the world.
Reading our original article, it's immediately obvious that everyone -- virologists, epidemiologists, journalists -- was flying blind in those very early days. We were oblivious, perhaps even shortsighted. No one predicted exactly what would occur over the next 365 days, though there were those who tried to sound the alarm early.
Back then, research had only just begun to uncover how we might combat COVID-19. In those early days, new data came quickly, but there were significant gaps in our knowledge that allowed a deluge of misinformation, conspiracy and fear to fester.
https://www.cnet.com/how-to/the-coronavirus-pandemic-explained-one-year-later/