Contemporary · East Asia · Disaster

2019

Wuhan reports a strange pneumonia

December 31, 2019

On New Year's Eve, the World Health Organization's China office received notice of a cluster of pneumonia cases in Wuhan with no known cause. A seafood market was implicated. Within weeks the virus had a name, SARS-CoV-2, and had begun spreading to neighboring countries. A century after the Spanish flu, another respiratory pandemic was underway.

In context
Also in 2019 (7 other events on record)
Era

Contemporary (2001–2026), one of 196 events from that era on Saeculum.