Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), referred to as “New Coronary Pneumonia”, named by the World Health Organization as “Coronavirus Disease 2019” [1-2], refers to pneumonia caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus infection. Since December 2019, some hospitals in Wuhan City, Hubei Province have successively discovered multiple cases of unexplained pneumonia with a history of exposure to the South China Seafood Market, which have now been confirmed as acute respiratory infectious diseases caused by the 2019 new coronavirus infection.
On February 11, 2020, the Director-General of the World Health Organization Tan Desai announced in Geneva, Switzerland, that the pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus was named “COVID-19” [7]. On February 21, 2020, the National Health Commission issued a notice on the revision of the English name of the new type of coronavirus pneumonia, and decided to amend the English name of “new type of coronavirus pneumonia” to “COVID-19”, which is consistent with the name of the World Health Organization , The Chinese name remains unchanged. [8] On March 4, 2020, the National Health Commission issued the “New Coronavirus Pneumonia Diagnosis and Treatment Plan (Trial Version 7)”.
On March 11, 2020 local time, the Director-General of the World Health Organization Tan Desai announced that according to the assessment, the WHO believes that the current new crown pneumonia epidemic can be called a pandemic.
On April 4, 2020, China held a national mourning event. During this period, the national and foreign embassies and consulates lowered their flags to mourn, and public entertainment activities were suspended throughout the country. Starting at 10 o’clock on April 4, people across the country observed a three-minute silence. Cars, trains, and ships sounded their horns and air defense sirens sounded.
On September 3, 2020, the co-chair of the WHO Expert Group on New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic Response Assessment announced the list of members of the expert group at a briefing by member states. Zhong Nanshan, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and director of the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Diseases, was selected.