Covid ‘emergency is over’: 20 key moments of pandemic that changed the world

1) December 1st, 2019: The first index case of what would become Covid-19 is detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan. A week later 41 people are in hospital with the disease.

2) December 30th, 2019: Wuhan Central Hospital finds that the mystery illness is a form of the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) coronavirus which caused an epidemic in the Far East and Canada in 2003, but quickly petered out.

3) December 31st, 2019 Wuhan Municipal Health Commission goes public on a mysterious form of pneumonia which has accounted for 27 cases but no deaths. The World Health Organisation (WHO) is informed of the disease. All initial cases seem connected to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market.

[ Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency, says WHO, in major step towards end of pandemic ]

4) January 13th 2020: In Thailand the first case outside China is recorded.

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5) January 24th, 2020: In France the first confirmed cases of the novel Coronavirus disease in Europe is recorded.

6) February 11th, 2020: The WHO announces the name of the new virus. It is called Covid-19 and the virus is SARS-CoV-2.

7) February 29th, 2020: The first case of coronavirus is confirmed in Ireland. It is from a person who travelled from northern Italy where the virus is already rampant. “This is not unexpected. We have been preparing for this eventuality for many weeks now. The health service has robust response measures in place,” said Dr Tony Holohan, then chief medical officer at the Department of Health.

8) March 11th, 2020: The first death from Covid-19 in the Republic is announced. The WHO declares that the Covid-19 outbreak is now a global pandemic.

9) March 12th, 2020: Cases reaches 70 in Ireland. Taoiseach Leo Varadakar, in Washington DC for the traditional St Patrick’s Day visit, announces the closure of all schools, colleges and children facilities for a period of 15 days. It marked the start of two years of unprecedented restrictions which upended life as we knew it in Ireland. Some pubs are closed for 16 months. People are not allowed to leave the country. Many children spend more than a year away from school.

10) March 27th, 2020: Severe lockdown measures are put in place. People are not allowed to travel outside an area of 2 kilometres. All non-essential shops are shut. All public gatherings are banned and all people over the age of 70 are told to stay at home and “cocoon”.

11) August 19th, 2020: The biggest political scandal surrounding Covid-19 is the so-called Golfgate affair when several politicians, a Supreme Court judge and other public figures attend an event at the Oireachtas Golf Society in Clifden, Co Galway. At the time the gathering appeared to be in breach of the restrictions. As a result EU commissioner Phil Hogan and the Minister for Agriculture Dara Calleary resigned. Four people were eventually charged for organising the event, but all charges were dismissed in 2021.

12) December 8th, 2020: An Irish-born woman becomes the first person in the world to receive the Covid-19 vaccine. Margaret Keenan, originally from Enniskillen, got the Pfizer/BioNTech jab at 6.45am in a hospital in Coventry, England.

13) December 29th, 2020: Taoiseach Micheál Martin promised the public they would have a “meaningful Christmas” but the easing of restrictions coincides with a surge in cases. All pubs, restaurants and cafes are ordered to shut and the country is put back into an almost total lockdown.

14) December 29th, 2020: Annie Lynch, a 79-year-old grandmother, and St James’s Hospital clinical nurse manager Bernie Waterhouse become the first people in Ireland to receive the Covid-19 vaccine.

15) January 2021: This month represents the peak of the Covid-19 strain in Ireland with more than 100,000 cases and 1,000 deaths. Daily deaths reach a peak on February 1st 2021 with 78 notified deaths in one day.

16) December 2021: A new variant of Covid-19 is confirmed. Omicron would see infections soar to unprecedented heights. Fortunately Omicron is much less virulent than previous strains.

17) January 2022: Infections reach a peak of 23,909 daily cases on January 10th. On that day the millionth case is confirmed in the State. Chief medical officer Tony Holohan estimates that up to 10 per cent of the population contracted Covid-19 in the previous week, but the disease quickly passes its peak.

18) January 21st, 2022: Government announces that nearly all restrictions are being lifted. “Today is a good day,” said then taoiseach Micheál Martin. Indeed it was.

19) January 28th,, 2022: The Department of Health announces that it will no longer be releasing daily Covid-19 figures. The disease quickly fades from the public conscience as life gets back to normal.

20) Friday, May 5th, 2023: The World Health Organisation (WHO) declares that the Covid-19 no longer represents a global health emergency, although it stops short of stating the pandemic is over. There has been a total of 1,710,625 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and 8,866 deaths from or with the disease in the Republic. In reality the number of infected people is expected to much higher than that. There have been at least 690 million cases worldwide, though the that figure is surely an underestimation, and 6,868,594 deaths. Approximately 1 in 100 of those who contracted Covid-19 died from the disease.