How COVID-19 took over the world in 2020

Hardly any space has been spared – and no one.

The virus that first emerged a year ago in Wuhan, China, flew around the world in 2020, causing devastation in its wake. More than any other event, the pandemic has been a global event. Households on every continent have felt its devastation – unemployment and incarceration, weakness and death. And a persistent, relentless fear.

But each country has its own story of how it handled it. How China used its authoritarian power to eradicate the coronavirus. How Brazil struggled with the pandemic, even while the president made fun of it. How Israel’s ultra-Orthodox measures to stop the disease spread, widening the gap between them and their more secular neighbors.

Spain witnessed the death of thousands of elders. Kenyans watched as schools closed and children went to work, some as prostitutes. The draconian incarceration of India reduced the infection rate – but only temporarily and at a horrifying cost.

At the end of the year, promising vaccines offered a glimmer of hope amid an emerging second wave of infection.

“Winter will be tough, four long, difficult months,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said, announcing new restrictions on life in Germany. “But it will end.”

Journalists from The Associated Press around the world have assessed how the countries where they are being broadcast survived the pandemic – and where those countries are on the brink of the second year of the contagion.

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The story of COVID-19 in BRAZIL is the story of a president who insists the pandemic is not a problem. Jair Bolsonaro condemned the COVID-19 quarantine, saying shutdowns would devastate the economy and punish the poor. He scoffed at the “little flu,” then trumpeted the fatalistic claim that nothing could stop 70% of Brazilians from getting sick. And he refused to take responsibility, while many did. He poured money into the economy to ease the pain of the pandemic. But while Bolsonaro could have inspired people to settle down, he instead encouraged them to ignore local restrictions.

Go deeper: Brazil’s leader scoffs, and the toll rises

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Workers have returned to factories and offices, students are back in the classroom, and again long lines form outside popular hotpot restaurants. In the cities it has become common practice to wear a surgical mask – although this is no longer necessary outside of subways and other busy places. In many ways, normal life has resumed in CHINA, the country where COVID-19 first appeared a year ago. China’s ruling Communist Party has repealed some of the most sweeping disease-control measures ever imposed. The challenge is jobs: the economy is growing again, but the recovery is uneven.

Go deeper: China’s state power is crushing COVID-19

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THE GERMANS enjoyed a largely relaxed summer in which many restrictions were lifted, the dividend from a rapid response to the initial coronavirus outbreak and a reliance on early and widespread testing that garnered widespread praise. It cut the number of daily COVID-19 cases from a peak of more than 6,000 at the end of March to several hundred by the warmer months. But as people became lax about following the rules, numbers began to soar and nearly quadruple the March daily record, and the country is now in another lockdown as it tries to get the pandemic back under control.

Go deeper: early success, growing concern in Germany

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INDIA, a nation of 1.3 billion people, is likely to emerge as the country with the highest coronavirus rate in the world. It responded to the pandemic early on with an abrupt nationwide lockdown, but the number of cases increased as restrictions eased and the creaking public health system struggled to keep up. Questions have been raised about the unusually low death rate. Worries about the virus in India are also multiplied by the struggling economy that has recorded its worst performance in at least two decades. It will be the hardest hit of the world’s largest economies, even after the pandemic subsides.

Go deeper: India struggles to save lives, economy

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Initially, IRAN officials downplayed COVID-19 – they denied the rising toll of infections, refused to close mosques, and made half-hearted gestures to shut down businesses. That was then. This is now: even supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has worn disposable gloves while planting a tree for state media, and prayed in an empty mosque on the occasion of Ashoura’s holy Shia memorial. The coronavirus pandemic has only gotten worse in Iran over the year, threatening everyone from the day laborer on the streets to the upper reaches of the Islamic Republic. Now the virus has sickened and killed top officials and has become arguably Iran’s greatest threat since the unrest and war that followed the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Go Deeper: Iran is no longer struggling in viral denial

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When ISRAEL entered its second nationwide coronavirus lockdown in September, most of the country quickly complied with the shutdown. But in some ultra-Orthodox areas, synagogues were packed, mourners displaced funerals, and COVID-19 cases continued to rise. The disregard of national security rules in ultra-Orthodox areas reinforced the popular perception that the community puts faith above science and cares little about the greater good. It has also sparked a backlash that threatens to ripple in Israeli society for years. Meanwhile, the neighboring Palestinian territories – the West Bank and Gaza – are facing crises of their own.

Go Deeper: A Virus Is Widening Israel’s Religious Rifts

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In late February, ITALY became the epicenter of COVID-19 in Europe and a cautionary tale of what happens when a health care system in even one of the wealthiest parts of the world collapses under the weight of a pandemic, the sick and the dead. When the second wave hit in September, even the lessons learned from the first were not enough to save Italy’s disproportionately old population from destruction. Despite plans and protocols, monitoring systems and machinery installed to guard against the expected fall attack, thousands more died and hospitals were again brought to breaking point.

Go deeper: Italy is becoming Europe’s viral epicenter

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The COVID-19 pandemic in JAPAN got off to a turbulent start in February when a luxury cruise ship returned to its home port near Tokyo with passengers and crew; their infections exploded during quarantine. The Diamond Princess’ treatment sparked criticism that Japanese health officials had messed up the quarantine and turned the vessel into a virus incubator. Despite concerns over whether the country could survive future waves of infection, Japan has been spared the dangerous spikes in the US and Europe and hopes to host the Olympics next summer. Experts say the use of masks and border controls have been key to keeping the Japanese caseload down.

Go Deeper: Masks are essential for keeping caseload down in Japan

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They say the youth is a protective factor against COVID-19. In KENYA the young people have suffered anyway. From children forced into forced labor and prostitution, to schools closed until 2021, from a child shot by police enforcing a curfew, to babies born in desperate circumstances, the consequences of the pandemic in Kenya are harsh for the young. Increasing economic pressures and Kenya’s intention to close schools to nearly everyone by 2021 have put enormous pressure on children, who suddenly fled by the millions. Some are now splitting rocks in quarries, or have engaged in prostitution or theft.

Go deeper: Kenyan youth suffer collateral damage

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For months, PERU held the stark title of first worldwide in COVID-19 deaths per capita. It didn’t have to be. Decades of underinvestment in public health, poor decisions at the start of the pandemic, coupled with severe inequality and shortages of life-saving goods such as medicinal oxygen, combine to trigger one of the world’s deadliest outbreaks. Now the nation is struggling with crippling, massive grief. A recent poll found that 7 in 10 Peruvians know someone who has died from the virus.

Go deeper: Peru’s death toll leaves a grieving nation

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In the world’s most unequal country, the disease hit the poor hardest, and the economic downturn pushed unemployment to 42%. But SOUTH AFRICA had a secret weapon: health workers who are veterans of the country’s long battle against HIV / AIDS and drug-resistant TB. The country’s leaders have followed their advice on how to deal with the coronavirus, and while there have been ups and downs, the worst-case scenarios have not yet materialized.

Go deeper: South Africa is acting fast, avoiding disaster

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In 2020, SPANIARDS normalized things that were unimaginable just 12 months earlier. But 2020 will also fall as the year when an unknown virus shook the foundations of the social contract and questioned a system that couldn’t prevent as many deaths. Politicians claim that the system did not collapse during that first wave, when the country registered 929 deaths in one day. But health professionals will tell you that the true cost is overworked staff who fell ill more than anywhere else in the world and took a tremendous emotional toll.

Go deeper: the Spanish system is failing and the elderly are dying

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AMERICANS have been engulfed in wave after wave of grim numbers – COVID-19 deaths in the hundreds of thousands, infections in the millions. While those numbers bear witness to a tragedy of historical proportions, they do not fully capture the multitude of ways, large and small, in which the virus has turned and changed daily life. For that, however, there are a host of other numbers, some more familiar than others, but all equally telling in tracking the sweeping impact of the pandemic.

Go deeper: the US in numbers, telling and gruesome

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In MEXICO, the government did little except ask the people to act responsibly. The result: more than 100,000 deaths, a number believed to be an understatement. In NEW ZEALAND, the government closed its borders and closed almost everything, preventing all but a few dozen deaths. The countries of the world had a range of responses to the COVID-19 pandemic – sometimes changing from strict to lax measures, or vice versa, in just a few months. A look at the state of the pandemic around the world.

Go deeper: nations had a range of responses

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On the Web: A Pandemic Atlas (http://apnews.com/PandemicAtlas )