RT Book, Section A1 Malosh, Ryan E. A1 Segaloff, Hannah E. A1 Monto, Arnold S. A2 Boulton, Matthew L. A2 Wallace, Robert B. SR Print(0) ID 1182674935 T1 SARS CoV-2 and the COVID-19 Pandemic T2 Maxcy-Rosenau-Last Public Health & Preventive Medicine, 16e YR 2022 FD 2022 PB McGraw Hill PP New York, NY SN 9781259644511 LK accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1182674935 RD 2024/03/28 AB In late 2019 a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown cause was reported from the city of Wuhan, China in Hubei province. A novel coronavirus designated SARS-CoV-2 was determined to be the cause which subsequently spread world-wide causing the COVID-19 pandemic. The first wave of the pandemic, as of this writing, is still underway. As of the beginning of August, 2020, documented cases reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) have reached nearly 18 million globally with the largest number of cases in the United States and SARS-CoV-2 deaths are reported to be nearly 687,000 worldwide. The virus has spread to nearly all parts of the globe but the burden of disease has varied widely both within and among countries. Given that the pandemic is evolving on a daily basis, this chapter presents a snapshot of the situation which will change with the passage of time. Because of the novel nature of this virus, it is not possible to predict with any degree of certainty how the epidemiology of the pandemic will progress in countries around the world.