A national emergency was declared on March 13. In early March the Food and Drug Administration began allowing public health agencies and private companies to create and carry out tests. The Trump administration waited until mid-March to start purchasing large amounts of medical equipment.
On March 16, the White House announced that they were against any gatherings of more than ten people. Since March 19, 2020, the U.S. Department of State has said all U.S. citizens to avoid all international travel.
State and local responses to the outbreak have included cancellation of large gatherings, stay-at-home orders and the closing of schools and other educational institutions.
Large numbers of outbreaks in the U.S. were seen in black American populations.
Many numbers of infections and deaths have happened in nursing homes, long-term care facilities, prisons and other detention centers, meatpacking plants, churches, and larger cities such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle.
In July 2020, scientists from Johns Hopkins University told people that deaths from COVID-19 in United States prisons were much higher than the average for the whole country. There were about 3251 sick prisoners and 39 deaths out of every 100,000 prisoners. The national average was about 587 sick United States residents and 29 deaths for every 100,000 United States residents.
COVID-19 pandemic in Spain
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was first confirmed to have spread to Spain on 31 January 2020, when a German tourist tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in La Gomera, Canary Islands. By 13 March, cases had been confirmed in all 50 provinces of the country.
A state of alarm and national lockdown was made on 14 March. On 29 March it was announced that, beginning the following day, all non-essential workers were to stay home for the next 14 days. By late March, the Community of Madrid has recorded the most cases and deaths in the country.
On 25 March the death toll in Spain passed that of mainland China, and only Italy's was higher.
On 2April, 950 people died of the virus in a 24-hour period—at the time, the most by any country in a single day. The next day Spain passed Italy in total cases and is now second only to the United States.
COVID-19 pandemic in Italy
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was first confirmed to have spread to Italy on 30 January 2020, when two Chinese tourists in Rome tested positive for the virus.
A large amount of cases was later found, starting with 16 confirmed cases in Lombardy on 21 February, and 60 additional cases and the first deaths on 22 February. By the beginning of March, the virus had spread to all regions of Italy.
On 30 January, the Italian government stopped all flights to and from China and declared a state of emergency. In February, eleven cities in northern Italy were seen as the centres of the two main Italian infected areas and placed under quarantine. The majority of positive cases in other regions traced back to these two areas.
On 8 March 2020, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte expanded the quarantine to all of Lombardy and 14 other northern provinces, and on the following day to all of Italy were placed on quarantine. On 11 March 2020, Conte prohibited nearly all commercial activity except for supermarkets and pharmacies.
On 21 March, the Italian government closed all non-essential businesses and industries, and stopped movement of people.
, Italy has 78,457 active cases, one of the highest in the world.
Overall there have been
222,104 confirmed cases and
31,106 deaths (a rate of 509 deaths per million population), while there have been
112,541 recoveries or dismissals.
By 13 May, Italy had tested about 1,779,000 people. Because of the limited number of tests performed, the real number of infected people in Italy, as in other countries, is seen to be higher than the official count.
On 19 March, Italy became the country with the highest number of confirmed coronavirus deaths; however, on 11 April, the United States topped Italy.
COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China
The COVID-19 pandemic started with a large number of unknown, possible pneumonia cases in the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, China. A Wuhan hospital told the local center for disease control and prevention (CDC) and health commissions on 27 December 2019.
On 31 December, the Wuhan CDC told the media that there was a large number of unknown pneumonia cases related to Huanan Seafood Market.
The possible disease outbreak soon became known nationwide including that of the National Health Commission (NHC) in Beijing who sent experts to Wuhan on the following day. Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organisation on this same day. On 8 January, a new coronavirus was identified as the cause of the pneumonia.
Public and media criticized Chinese officials for a slow response to fight the outbreak when it first started. By 29 January, the virus spread to all provinces of mainland China. All provinces of mainland China began a large public health emergency. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern" on 31 January, saying that there are reasons that it could spread to other countries, such as those without robust healthcare systems. By 8 February, over 724 died from the coronavirus and 34,878 were confirmed to have been infected. In Hubei alone, there were 24,953 cases of infections and 699 related deaths.
The Chinese government may have censored talks about the outbreak since the beginning of its spread. On 25 January, Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping warned about a "grave situation" in China.
The Chinese New Year celebrations were cancelled. Passengers across the country have been checked for their temperatures.
By 29 January, all Hubei cities were quarantined. Curfew laws were added in Huanggang, Wenzhou, and other mainland cities.
In February 2020, the region also saw a huge shortage of face masks and other protective gear even though China called themselves the world's largest makers of these masks. Other countries donated medical supplies to help China deal with the epidemic.
On 25 February, the number of newly confirmed cases outside mainland China passed those from within for the first time. By 6 March the reported number of new cases had dropped to well fewer than 100 nationally per day, down from thousands per day.
"Many human coronaviruses have their origin in bats". The human coronavirus NL63 shared a common ancestor with a bat coronavirus (ARCoV.2) between 1190 and 1449 AD. The human coronavirus 229E shared a common ancestor with a bat coronavirus (GhanaGrp1 Bt CoV) between 1686 and 1800 AD. More recently, alpaca coronavirus and human coronavirus 229E diverged sometime before 1960.
MERS-CoV emerged in humans from bats through the intermediate host of camels. MERS-CoV, although related to several bat coronavirus species, appears to have diverged from these several centuries ago.
The most closely related bat coronavirus and SARS-CoV diverged in 1986. The ancestors of SARS-CoV first infected leaf-nose bats; later, they spread to horseshoe bats, then to Asian palm civets, and finally to humans.
Racism among Asians such as Chinese people grew during the pandemic such as criticisms of their markets, lifestyles and food choices. Some rumors say that China made the virus in a lab.
COVID-19 pandemic in Iran
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Iran reported its first confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections on 19 February 2020 in Qom. The virus may have been brought to the country by a merchant from Qom who had travelled to China.
In response to the coronavirus the government cancelled public events and Friday prayers. They closed schools, universities, shopping centres, bazaars, and holy shrines; and banned festival celebrations.