8 April

The novel coronavirus pandemic originated in Wuhan, China as the epicenter and has moved into ‘acceleration phase’ to the majority of countries around the world. While China is in recovery and opening up quarantine restrictions, Europe and the US are now epicenters of the outbreak. Global trends suggest that the infection is still on the rise.  Some of the harder-hit countries, such as Italy, Spain, Germany, and Iran, are showing a declining trend in the reported new cases. However, caution is needed in interpreting the data due to limitations in testing and reporting. According to GlobalData, the confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection around the world is now more than 1,348,000 cases and the death toll is more than 74,800 globally. A total of 184 countries have been impacted by the outbreak with most of the people on self-quarantine.

Kasey Fu, MPH, director of epidemiology, GlobalData