the covid-19 pandemic, also called the coronavirus pandemic, is a current pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19). it is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov-2). the outbreak started in wuhan, hubei, china, in december 2019. the world health organization (who) called it a pandemic on 11 march 2020. the international committee on taxonomy of viruses gave the virus its name. as of september 4, 2022, more than 600 million cases of covid-19 have been reported in almost every country on earth. more than six million people have died of covid-19, and more than 580 million people have defeated, or recovered from the disease.