On the 1st of January 2020, the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan China was closed for cleaning and disinfection. Since then the world has changed. The disease spread around the world, infecting 636 million people and killing 6.61 million. The world stopped, nations locked down and people went indoors, unsure of when they would return to normality.
The first confirmed case of COVID-19 in Europe was in Bordeaux, France, on the 24th of January. Europe quickly became the epicentre of the pandemic and within 50 days every European country had confirmed cases.
European countries began imposing lockdown measures in March, aiming to slow the infection rate, but by mid-April Europe surpassed 1 million cases. To date, there have been over 200 million cases in Europe, with the worst affected countries being France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Russia.
Italy was one the first countries to experience large amounts of deaths, partly due to an elderly population, and quickly imposed strict lockdowns in an attempt to save lives. Italy hit its first peak in March 2020 with 922 deaths in a day, only for it to surpass it again in December of the same year with 933 deaths in one day.
