COVID-19, short for coronavirus disease 2019, is a highly contagious respiratory illness caused by a coronavirus known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2. The disease was first detected in 2019 in Wuhan, China. It quickly spread to countries worldwide, causing a multiyear pandemic (March 2020βMay 2023) that resulted in millions of deaths and changed how many people worked and attended school.
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