On March 11th, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a worldwide pandemic. The first COVID outbreak began in Wuhan, China in December 2019, and had spread to other Asian countries and then worldwide by early 2020. On January 30th, 2020, WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, and became a pandemic on March 11th. The pandemic caused social and economic disruption around the world, including the largest global recession since the Great Depression in 1929. Today, COVID-19 has caused over 7,000,000 reported deaths worldwide, with over 775,000,000 confirmed cases worldwide, although that number is expected to be much higher.
