Canada is marking two years since the first cases of COVID-19 appeared in the country.
A man in his 50 was admitted to hospital on January 23rd, 2020 after arriving in Toronto from Wuhan, China, where the novel coronavirus was quickly spreading.
He became the first presumptive case of the virus just two days later.
The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on January 30th, 2020.
It’s considered the highest level of alarm under international law.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says at that time there were fewer than 100 cases and no deaths reported outside China.
“Two years later almost 350 million cases have been reported and more than 5.5 million deaths,” he says.
On average last week, 100 cases were reported every 3 seconds. Someone lost their life every 12 seconds.
Since January 25th, 2020, Canada has recorded nearly 3 million infections and 32,000 deaths.
