The COVID-19 pandemic

The story

An unknown pneumonia

At the end of December 2019, in a hospital in Wuhan, a big city in central China, some doctors noticed an unusual number of patients with pneumonia of unknown origin. On 31 December the World Health Organization's office in China learned of this pneumonia from a statement by the Wuhan authorities. A few days later scientists identified the cause: a new coronavirus, a relative of the one that had caused SARS in 2003. In early January Chinese researchers read its whole genetic code and shared it with the world, so that laboratories in other countries could make tests. The virus was named SARS-CoV-2, and the disease it causes, on 11 February 2020, COVID-19.

The virus is passed on mainly through the droplets of saliva we give off when we talk, cough and breathe, and it spreads easily, especially in closed and crowded places. In many people it causes mild symptoms, but in others, especially elderly people or those with other illnesses, it can cause severe pneumonia. In a few months, planes, trains and travellers carried it everywhere.

Italy, first in Europe

On 21 February 2020 in Codogno, a town in Lombardy, the first case of infection with no links to China was found: it was the start of the epidemic in Europe. Some towns were closed at once, then the whole region. On 9 March the government extended the measures to the whole country: people had to stay at home, and schools, non-essential shops, restaurants, theatres and factories closed. You could go out only to buy food, go to the pharmacy or work in essential services.

They were difficult weeks. In the hospitals of Bergamo and other areas, doctors and nurses worked without a break, in masks and protective suits, to treat an enormous number of patients: there were not enough places in intensive care. In the evenings, from balconies, people applauded the health workers and sang; on bedsheets and in children's drawings a rainbow appeared with the words “Everything will be all right”. On 18 March a column of army lorries carried the coffins of the dead out of Bergamo, because the cemeteries could not cope: an image that many still remember.

On 11 March 2020 the World Health Organization declared that this was a “pandemic”, that is, an epidemic spreading all over the world. In a short time almost all countries adopted similar measures: closed borders, masks, social distancing, hand hygiene, swab tests. At the worst moment, more than one and a half billion students around the world could not go to school: lessons moved online, on computers and phones.

Vaccines in less than a year

Normally creating a vaccine takes many years. This time researchers took less than a year, thanks to unprecedented international work and a new technique, mRNA vaccines, studied for decades by scientists such as Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman: they contain a small instruction that teaches cells to make a harmless piece of the virus, so the body learns to recognise it. Other companies and laboratories prepared vaccines with different techniques. After trials on tens of thousands of volunteers, the first vaccinations began in December 2020: in Italy on 27 December, on the “vaccination day” across Europe, and the first person to receive a dose was a nurse at the Spallanzani hospital in Rome.

In 2021 vaccinations spread, though not equally all over the world: rich countries got the doses much earlier than poor ones. New variants of the virus, such as Delta and Omicron, kept spreading, but the vaccines greatly reduced the risk of becoming seriously ill. The World Health Organization declared the end of the international health emergency on 5 May 2023.