COVID-19 TIMELINE Dec 31

BOSS TO RALLY VOLUNTEERS

Chinese authorities treat dozens of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause. Days later, researchers in the country identify a mysterious new virus.

State media in

China reports the first known death from an illness caused by the virus, which has infected dozens of people. The 61-year-old man who died was a regular customer at a market in Wuhan, where the new illness is thought to have originated.mainland China occur in Japan, South

The first confirmed cases outside

Korea and Thailand, according to the World Health Organisation.

Authorities close off Wuhan by cancelling planes and trains leaving the city.

A “public health emergency of international concern” is officially declared by the WHO.

The first coronavirus death is reported outside China. A

44-year-old man in the Philippines has died after being infected, officials say. By now more than 360 people are dead.

After a two-week trip to south-east Asia, more than 3,600 passengers are quarantined aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan.

A Chinese doctor who tried to raise the alarm dies. The death of Dr Li

Wenliang provokes anger at the Chinese government’s handling of the epidemic.

The death toll in

China rises to 908, passing the global number of dead from the SARS epidemic in 2002-3, which killed 774.

France announces the first coronavirus death in Europe.

Officials in Italy lock down 10 towns after a cluster of cases emerge near Milan. Brazilian health officials say a 61-year-old man who returned recently from a business trip to Italy has tested positive in the first known case in Latin America.

The first British victim is confirmed, after a man in his 70s dies in hospital following quarantine on the Diamond Princess.

A woman in her 70s becomes the first victim to die in the UK.

An 83-year-old man is confirmed as the second in Britain to die.