COVID-19 One Year On, The Pandemic Still Rages; US records over 4,000 deaths in a day

One year ago, on January 13, 2020, Thailand became the first country to officially confirm cases of the novel coronavirus outside of China. And while most experts now agree that the virus must have spread outside of China before that date, it still marks a key milestone on the way to what many will remember as one of the most disruptive events of their lifetimes.

And while the arrival of several vaccines and the beginning of mass inoculation campaigns across the world are a welcome light at the end of the tunnel, the virus remains an imminent threat for the time being. According to the World Health Organization, the seven-day average of daily new cases hit a record high of 715,557 on Monday after new cases had surpassed 800,000 in two of the past four days.

As of January 12, 2021, the WHO reports more than 89 million cases of COVID-19 globally, including 1.94 million deaths. With more than 22 million cases and 376,000 deaths, the U.S. has been the worst affected country by far, followed by India and Brazil with 10.5 and 8.1 million confirmed cases, respectively.