Epidemiology of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

On December 12, 2019, a number of cases emerged caused by an unidentified pneumonia disease outbreak in a local seafood market in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. Samples from five patients tested positive for coronaviruses, where 87.1% sequences were identical to the SARS-related coronaviruses. On January 8, 2020, the CSG of the ICTV named this virus SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The USA had its first COVID-19 case on January 21, 2020, in Washington State. The WHO declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020. Several biological and epidemiological characteristics of COVID-19 are presented percent of asymptomatic infections, infection fatality ratio, case fatality rate, reproduction number, incubation period, latent period, and serial interval. Data are presented on the demographic overrepresentation of Blacks and Hispanics on COVID-19 deaths in 50 States and DC, as well as in 14 States with the largest Black and Hispanic populations, along with the top 5 States of residence of the Black population. Data also are offered on Blacks’ disproportional burden of COVID-19 deaths in selected counties in Florida and Georgia. It is worthy to note that, at least about 7 months into the pandemic, the USA had no strategic preparedness and response plan and persistently breached field epidemiology principles, prompting three prominent public health journals, Scientific American, The Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine, to deliver sweeping criticisms on the Trump Administration’s mishandling of COVID-19. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.