On 20 March 2020, the four governments shut all schools, restaurants, pubs, indoor entertainment venues and leisure centres, with some exceptions. On 23 March, the UK government made a lockdown on the whole population, banning all "non-essential" travel and contact with people outside one's home and shutting almost all businesses, venues, facilities, amenities and places of worship.
People were told to keep apart in public. Police were given the power to enforce the lockdown, and the Coronavirus Act 2020 gave the government emergency powers not used since the Second World War.
More lockdowns took place in October, November and December 2020. Different places had different rules. A national lockdown in England began on 5 January 2021.
It is said that the lockdown will severely damage the UK economy, lead to millions of job losses, worsen mental health and suicide rates, and cause "collateral" deaths due to isolation, delays and falling living standards.
Researchers suggest the lockdown could be lifted by shielding only the most vulnerable and using contact tracing.
Some schools stayed open to teach the children of essential workers, at-risk children, and children with special education needs. However, adults who work for disabled students' rights told Parliament that British educators had unfairly sent special education students home without good reasons.
Starting with the most at risk, the UK vaccinations is going in this order:
COVID-19 pandemic in Canada
The COVID-19 pandemic in Canada is part of the ongoing worldwide pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 () caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 ().
The disease was confirmed to have reached Canada on January 27, 2020, after a man who had returned to Toronto from Wuhan, Hubei, China, tested positive. , there have been over 134,000 confirmed cases, 118,000 recoveries and 9,000 deaths in the country. The Government of Canada says that around 11,000–22,000 deaths could happen over the course of the pandemic.
Most of those cases are in Canada's most populous provinces, Ontario (19,598 cases, 1,540 deaths) and Quebec (36,150 cases, 2,725 deaths).
Confirmed cases have been reported in all of Canada's provinces and territories, with the exception of Nunavut. An additional 13 cases involve citizens from the "Grand Princess" cruise ship.
Among the Canadians who contracted the virus was Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, wife of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who tested positive for the virus on March 12 after which the family went into self-isolation. By March 28, she had recovered.
Until March, all cases were linked to recent travel to a country with a large number of cases. The first case of community transmission in Canada was confirmed in British Columbia on March 5, and Toronto's chief health officer announced on March 16 that there is "some evidence of community transmission" (that the disease was spreading within the country).
In mid March, as cases of community transmission were confirmed, all of Canada's provinces and territories declared states of emergency. Provinces and territories made school and daycare shutdown, ended on gatherings, closed non-essential businesses, restrictions on entry, and mandatory self-isolation for travellers.
Canada severely restricted its border access.
Ryan Russell
Ryan Russell is an British actor, best known for being a presenter on CBeebies from 2017 to 2019; and for playing the role of Michael Bailey in the long-running ITV soap opera, "Coronation Street", from 2019 onwards. He studied Performance at the University of Salford and has appeared onstage in "It's a Wonderful Life" and "Cassio" and in commercials for Superdrug and WeBuyAnyCar.com. Russell was also one of the kids on World of Colours.
COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuador
The COVID-19 pandemic was reported to have spread to Ecuador on 29 February 2020. That was when a woman in her 70s tested positive for the virus. Ecuador was described in April as the growing "epicentre" of the pandemic in Latin America.
The city of Guayaquil has had so many deaths that bodies are being left in the street. Ecuador gave out cardboard coffins because the country had diffculty removing all the dead bodies. The government was planning to build emergency cemeteries to dispose of the bodies which are left in the streets.
In April 2021, newly elected President Guillermo Lasso said that his main priorities after being inaugurated would be to increase the COVID-19 vaccination rates in the country. Lassos said he aim for bilateral talks with Russia, China, the United States, the European Union and Chile to try to acquire vaccines.
The number of deaths was believed to be higher than the official figure because not enough testing was being done. A "New York Times" analysis found 7,600 more deaths had happened from 1 March to 15 April as the mortality rate spiked to three times as much as usual. That showed that the official death toll was lower than the actual death toll.
COVID-19 pandemic in Russia
The COVID-19 pandemic spread to Russia on 31 January 2020, when two Chinese tourists in Tyumen, Siberia and Chita, Russian Far East tested positive for the virus, with both cases being contained.
Early prevention measures happened within the first cases. They included restricting the border with China and large testing. The infection spread from Italy on 2 March, leading to more measures such as cancelling events, closing schools, theatres and museums, shutting the border, and declaring a non-working period which lasted up to 11 May, having been extended twice.
By the end of March, lockdowns were added in the large majority of federal subjects, including Moscow. By 17 April, cases were confirmed in all federal areas. On 27 April, the number of confirmed cases passed those in China and on 30 April, it passed 100,000.
As of 14 May, Russia has 252,245 confirmed cases, 53,530 recoveries, 2,305 deaths, and over 6.1 million tests performed, ranking second in number of confirmed cases. The city of Moscow is currently the most affected, having the majority of confirmed cases.
COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico
The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached Mexico in February 2020. However, the National Council of Science and Technology (CONACYT) reported two cases of COVID-19 in mid-January 2020 in the states of Nayarit and Tabasco, one case per state.
As of May 13, there had been 40,186 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Mexico and 4,220 reported deaths, although the Secretariat of Health said in early May 2020 that there were more than 104,562 cases in Mexico.
On January 12, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a large group of people in Wuhan, Hubei, China, which was reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) on December 31, 2019.
On January 22, 2020, the Secretariat of Health issued a statement saying that the novel coronavirus COVID-19 was not a threat to Mexico. 441 cases had been confirmed in China, Thailand, South Korea, and the United States. A travel warning was issued on January 9.
On February 28, Mexico confirmed its first three cases. A 35-year-old man and a 59-year-old man in Mexico City and a 41-year-old man in the northern state of Sinaloa tested positive and were held in isolation at a hospital and a hotel. They had travelled to Bergamo and stayed in Italy for a week in mid-February.
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador did not take the pandemic seriously such as the impact of coronavirus. He said "Pandemics ... won't do anything to us," and criticized the press and the opposition for its reportage.
A poll showed that 63% of Mexicans feared contracting Covid-19 and 25.5% feared dying from it. 28% said they were not willing to stay in their homes. 38.6% believed President López Obrador was handling the situation well, and 37% disapproved.
COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil