By LAURAN NEERGAARD, LAURA UNGAR and MIKE STOBBE, A.P.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five years ago, a cluster of people in Wuhan, China, fell sick with a virus never before seen in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The germ didn\u2019t have a name, nor did the illness it would cause. It wound up setting off a pandemic that exposed deep inequities in the global health system and reshaped public opinion about how to control deadly emerging viruses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The virus is still with us, though humanity has built up immunity through vaccinations and infections. It\u2019s less deadly than it was in the pandemic\u2019s early days and it no longer tops the list of leading causes of death. But the virus is evolving, meaning scientists must track it closely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We don\u2019t know. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a difficult scientific puzzle to crack in the best of circumstances. The effort has been made even more challenging by political sniping around the virus\u2019 origins and by what international researchers say are moves by China to withhold evidence that could help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The true origin of the pandemic may not be known for many years \u2014 if ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Probably more than 20 million. The World Health Organization has said member countries reported more than 7 million deaths from COVID-19 but the true death toll is estimated to be at least three times higher.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the U.S., an average of about 900 people a week have died of COVID-19 over the past year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The coronavirus continues to affect older adults the most. Last winter in the U.S., people age 75 and older accounted for about half the nation\u2019s COVID-19 hospitalizations and in-hospital deaths, according to the CDC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe cannot talk about COVID in the past, since it\u2019s still with us,\u201d WHO director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scientists and vaccine-makers broke speed records developing COVID-19 vaccines that have saved tens of millions of lives worldwide \u2013 and were the critical step to getting life back to normal.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHow many people died from COVID-19?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What vaccines were made available?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n