WHO reported on social media that there was a cluster of pneumonia cases – with no deaths – in Wuhan, Hubei province.

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of a novel coronavirus a global health emergency, an acknowledgement of the risk the virus poses to countries beyond its origin in China and of the need for a more coordinated international response to the outbreak.

The UN health agency announced that 'COVID-19' will be the official name of the deadly coronavirus from China, saying the disease represented a 'very grave threat' for the world but there was a 'realistic chance' of stopping it.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) plunges by 1,190.95 points, or 4.4%, to close at 25,766.64, its largest one-day points decline at the time. This follows several days of large falls, marking the worst week for the index since 2008, triggered by fears of the spreading COVID-19 coronavirus.

Italy places 16 million people in quarantine, more than a quarter of its population, in a bid to stop the spread of COVID-19.A day later, the quarantine is expanded to cover the entire country.

The World Health Organization declares the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. WHO's chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland: 'Covid-19 can be characterised as a pandemic. We have never before seen a pandemic sparked by a coronavirus.

The worldwide death toll from COVID-19 surpasses 10,000 as the total number of cases reaches a quarter of a million.

More than a million cases of coronavirus have been registered globally. It took a month and a half for the first 100,000 cases to be registered. A million was reached after a doubling in cases over the past week.

Global coronavirus cases exceed two million. The US has the largest number of cases with 609,685, followed by Spain at 177,633 and Italy at 162,488.

The death toll in Europe from COVID-19 surpasses 100,000. Healthcare workers wearing face masks observe three-minutes of silence in memory of COVID-19 victims outside La Fe hospital in Valencia on April 19, 2020

The number of COVID-19 cases surpasses 2.5 million globally, and the number in the U.S. surpasses 800,000. A man is taken by paramedics from a Chicago Fire Department ambulance into the emergency room at Roseland Community Hospital on the South Side of Chicago, as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) continues to spread, in Illinois, U.S., April 21, 2020.

The number of coronavirus cases in the United States surpasses 1 million — accounting for one-third of the cases globally. The number of Americans killed by COVID-19 surpasses 58,000. Now, more Americans have died from this disease than were killed in the Vietnam War.

The number of COVID-19 cases surpasses 4 million globally. A social distancing sign is seen on Broadway Market, following the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), London, Britain.

Global Covid-19 death toll surpasses 300,000

The number of COVID-19 cases surpasses 5 million globally. 60-year-old Gertrud Schop lights candles arranged in the shape of a cross, with one candle dedicated to each of the more than 8,000 German Covid-19-related victims, in Zella-Mehlis, eastern Germany.

Cases of COVID-19 surpass 6 million globally. A bird is pictured over a cross during a mass burial of people who passed away due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at the Parque Taruma cemetery in Manaus, Brazil.