Analysing and comparing the COVID-19 data: The closed cases of Hubei and South Korea, the dark March in Europe, the beginning of the outbreak in South America

Stefano De Leo; Gabriel Gulak Maia; Leonardo Solidoro

Chinese health authorities are still trying to determine the origin of the virus. By the end of 2019, the Chinese office of WHO received reports on an pneumonia of unknown cause in the city of Wuhan, located in the Hubei province. At the beginning of 2020, the cases developed into a cluster of pneumonia, which started being addressed by both WHO and local authorities. On January 13th, the first confirmed case outside of China, a patient in Thailand, showed the disease was no longer confined to the Chinese territory. In two months, on the 7th of March, the 100.000 cases mark was reached [5] and four days later WHO declared the COVID-19 a pandemic, with Europe being recognised as the new epicenter shortly after. As of the time of the writing of this paper, the beginning of April, nearly one million cases have been identified worldwide.