Epidemiology of COVID-19

On 31 December 2019, the Municipal Health Commission in Wuhan City, mainland China, issued a report on a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown aetiology with a link to a wholesale fish and live animal market. The first European case was reported on 24 January 2020. On 30 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared this outbreak of novel coronavirus a ‘public health emergency of international concern’  and on 11 March 2020 declared it officially as a global pandemic. On 5 May 2023, WHO stated that ’COVID-19 is now an established and ongoing health issue which no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern’ [26-28].

ECDC still publishes a weekly overview of the COVID-19 epidemiological situation by country in the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA) and, jointly with the WHO Regional Office for Europe, the WHO European Region including the Western Balkans [29]. These overviews include age-specific COVID-19 case notification rates, test positivity, hospitalisation, intensive care admission and occupancy, death rates, virus variants, and vaccine uptake.