Anxiety, worry and perceived stress in the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, March 2020. Preliminary results.

Rosario Sinta Gamonal Limcaoco; Enrique Montero Mateos; Juan Matias Fernandez; Carlos Roncero

Towards the end of 2019, the WHO China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia with an unknown aetiology detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province of China. Further on, after trying to point out the cause of the outbreak, Chinese authorities identified a new type of coronavirus on January 7, called SARS-CoV-2. On January 12, 2020, China shared the genetic sequence of the novel virus. Since the beginning of the outbreak, what is now known as the Novel Coronavirus has spread subsequently to the rest of the world causing this particular type of respiratory disease to be a pandemic. COVID-19 can cause anything from mild respiratory problems to pneumonia or death. Being men and older people the ones who mostly suffer the severity of this infectious desease. As the on-going pandemic continues to develop, World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 "a public health emergency of international concern." Approximately 60% of the global COVID-19 cases are currently outside China. At the time the survey was sent (March 17, 2020) the global situation registered by the WHO was: confirmed cases reported 207,860. Deaths 8,657 (Most of them in China and Europe-Italy and Spain mostly). Countries and territories with positive cases: 166. There is a very high rate of reported cases in health professionals.