The 2019 novel‐coronavirus (COVID‐19) has affected 181 countries with approximately 1197405 confirmed cases (by 5th April). Understanding the transmission dynamics of the infection in each country which got affected on a daily basis and evaluating the effectiveness of control policies are critical for our further actions. To date, the statistics of COVID‐19 reported cases show that more than 80% of infected are mild cases of disease, around 14% of infected have severe complications, and about 5% are categorized as critical disease victims. Today's report (5th April 2020; daily updates in the prepared website) shows that the confirmed cases of COVID‐19 in the United States, Spain, Italy, and Germany are 308850, 126168, 124632, and 96092, respectively. Calculating the total case fatality rate (CFR) of Italy (4th April 2020), about 13.3% of confirmed cases have passed away. Compared with South Korea's rate of 1.8% (seven times lower than Italy) and China's 4% (69% lower than Italy), the CFR of Italy is too high. Some effective policies that yielded significant changes in the trend of cases were the lockdown policy in China, Italy, and Spain (the effect observed after some days), the shutdown of all nonessential companies in Hubei (the effect observed after 5 days), combined policy in South Korea, and reducing working hours in Iran.
Highlights
Due to the very recent outbreak of COVID‐19, our knowledge is expanding as new data is presented.
Pandemic's outbreak behavior and the the effectiveness of the corresponding policies by the countries analyzed in this study.
A new procedure based on regression approach to calculate the case fatality rate during pandemics.
A reference of patterns and behaviors to help future pandemics' analysis.
1 INTRODUCTION
Human coronaviruses (HCoV) which cause gastrointestinal and respiratory tract infections were first introduced by the discovery of HCoV‐229E and HCoV‐OC43, from the nasal cavities of human patients with the common cold, in the 1960s.1, 2 Other discovered human coronaviruses, which have caused serious respiratory tract infections, include SARS‐CoV (in 2003), HCoV NL63 (in 2004), HKU1 (in 2005), MERS‐CoV (in 2012), and the latest one SARS‐CoV‐2 (in 2019) resulting in coronavirus disease (COVID‐19).3, 4 The name originates from the morphology of the virus when viewed under 2D transmission electron microscopy (large pleomorphic spherical particles with the bulbous surface) and stems from the Latin word "corona," meaning "crown."5 Concerning the risk factor, HCoVs vary significantly from the relatively harmless ones (ie, the common cold) to the most lethal ones (MERS‐CoV, with more than 30% mortality rate in the infected).6 CoVs spread during cold seasons and cause colds with major symptoms, that is, fever, sore throat, and less commonly pneumonia and bronchitis for the more aggressive strains. To date, there are no vaccines or antiviral drugs capable of preventing or treating HCoV infections.6-8
To date, several outbreaks of coronavirus‐related diseases have been reported. Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) was the first coronavirus‐related outbreak that started in Guangdong, China, in November 2002, and spread to a total of 29 territories, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada, Singapore, Vietnam, and the United States, within 9 months. It infected a total of 8098 people and killed 774 worldwide.9 The second coronavirus‐related outbreak happened in the Middle East in April 2012, officially named Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). This virus was first identified in a patient from Saudi Arabia, and later, MERS affected several other countries, including Saudi Arabia, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar, and Oman. Overall, the virus affected 24 countries, with over 1000 cases and over 400 deaths.10 The outbreak of MERS happened again in South Korea, supposedly from a traveler from the Middle East. It happened during May and July 2015 and infected a total of 186 individuals, with a death toll of 36.11 After 3 years in August 2018, the next MERS outbreak happened in countries of the Arabian Peninsula and resulted in almost 147 infected people and the death of 47. The MERS outbreak had been reported in Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, and South Korea.
In December 2019, a pneumonia outbreak was reported in Wuhan, China, and on 31st December, it was attributed to a new strain of HCoV, first named as 2019‐nCoV by the World Health Organization (WHO) and later renamed to SARS‐CoV‐2 by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. Almost 2 weeks later, on 11th January 2020, Chinese state media reported the first fatality from the newly discovered virus, which led to the infection of dozens more. Until 20th January, multiple countries reported their first cases, including Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. The first confirmed case in the United States came the very next day in the Washington State. As the spread continued, coronavirus presence was confirmed throughout the month of February in the Philippines (2nd February), France (14th February), Iran (21st February), and as reports started in Italy on 23rd February; many more European countries followed the suit, reporting their first confirmed cases. To date, the coronavirus has affected 181 (by 5th April) countries with more than 1100000 confirmed cases and around 65000 people have lost their lives. With the United States, Spain, Italy, and Germany experiencing the worst cases of outbreaks and showing no sign of alleviation, the 2019‐2020 outbreak of COVID‐19 is now officially recognized as a pandemic by WHO. An outbreak or epidemic often refers to a sudden increase in the occurrence of infectious disease, in a particular time and place. Pandemics are near‐global epidemic outbreaks, where multiple countries across the world are involved.12
The mentioned rapid trend of spread prompts a lot of concerns and questions such as "How fast is the virus spreading?," "Which policies or efforts could control the disease better?," and "What is the main difference of COVID‐19 outbreak with pervious epidemics?" Fortunately, the daily case detection changes are available and can be tracked almost in real time on the website provided by authors (http://iuwa.ir/corona/). The aim of this study is to provide the transmission trend from China to other countries and to report the daily confirmed cases, fatality causes, and surveillance in every country from the first day of the outbreak until 5th April and, also, to evaluate the effect of each government policy in controlling the outbreak of COVID‐19.
2 METHODS
2.1 Basic statistics
COVID‐19 has currently spread to 181 countries and most national authorities have failed to keep its rapid spread contained.13 WHO reports that it began in Wuhan city, located in Hubei province of China, first reported on 21st January.14 COVID‐19 categorizes in three distinctions concerning it is infected host's severity of disease.15, 16 To date, the statistics of its reported cases show more than 80% of infected had a mild case of disease, whereas around 14% of infected experienced a severe one, suffering from breathlessness and pneumonia. And about 5% are categorized as critical disease patients, their symptoms include septic shock, respiratory failure, and the failure of more than one organ.
Reports on 5th April 2020 show that the United States, Italy, and China have the most confirmed fatal and also recovered cases. The order of confirmed cases after the United States is followed by Spain, Italy, and Germany, which can be seen in Table 1. Confirmed death cases caused by COVID‐19 are also observed in 140 different countries (by 5th April), lead in numbers by Italy, Spain, the United States, and France. About 24% of death cases, 26% of confirmed cases, and 32% of recovered cases located in Italy, the United States, and China, respectively, are also shown in Table 1. The overall statistics since 5th April state that there are 1197405 confirmed, 64606 deaths, and 243572 recovered cases, overall. Figure 1 also shows that the COVID‐19 spread exists in all continents.
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