Who could have imagined a year ago how different our lives would be in just 12 months? Without any doubt, last November will remain a significant point in humanity’s history — the time when it all started. Although “patient zero” has not yet been confirmed — if it ever will be at all — we now know that everything began in China back on Nov. 17, 2019, when the first patient reportedly presented symptoms of a novel coronavirus disease named COVID-19, according to the South China Morning Post with references to government data.
In January 2020, Wuhan city in central China suffered from the massively expanding COVID-19 epidemic, and “41 admitted hospital patients had been identified as having laboratory-confirmed” cases, according to a publication in The Lancet. Just two months later, in March, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. One by one, governments worldwide closed their national borders, suspended public events, and banned people’s gatherings. The conversation unearthed two terms, rarely used before, which have now been declared 2020 words of the year by British Collins Dictionary: “lockdown” and “social distancing.”