In December 2019, a coronavirus, termed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), was first identified in Wuhan, China. It is the cause of a pandemic, called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), with millions of infections diagnosed worldwide.
As of October 2021, there have been 235,906,691 cases of COVID-19 worldwide with 4,818,670 deaths and 212,827,378 recovered. In the U.S. the total cases were reported as 44,524,306 with 719,950 deaths and 33,939,849 recovered.
Although the COVID-19 virus appears to have its origins in Wuhan, China, it is currently not clear how the viral spread may have occurred. Since the virus has a similar structure to a bat coronavirus, it is suspected that it may have originated from bats. Others theorize that the virus may have spread from a lab-related accident originating from the Wuhan Virology Lab. At this time, it is unclear precisely how the COVID-19 virus may have originated.
