When the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus a global pandemic on 11.March.2020, the number of confirmed cases worldwide was at the 100,000 mark. The WHO alerted all countries that the virus was spreading at an alarming rate and containment measures were urgently required. It became obvious that international travel was one of the main risk factors and thus airlines were grounded and airports closed. Land and sea borders were also closed to passengers.

Most countries implemented lockdown measures to reduce the rate of daily Covid-19 infections during the months of March, April and May 2020. One of the common measures was to restrict travel within the country to minimize human-to-human contact. Social distancing was a critical model to minimize large gatherings of people. Another measure was regular hand washing and sanitization of hands and surfaces to kill the virus.

These lockdown measures paid dividends as seen from the graph.

The rate of daily increase in confirmed Covid-19 cases has been dropping from as high as 56% per day, 54%, 26% and so on to the extent that by 27.June.2020, the rate was about 4% in Africa and only 1% in Europe.

The cumulative number of Covid-19 confirmed cases was obviously increasing. Within 108 of declaring the virus a global pandemic, the number of confirmed cases approached the 10,000,000 mark. An yet, most countries had already started easing the lockdown measures during the month of June 2020 and more relaxation is set to be implemented in July 2020 onwards.  60% of Covid-19 patients have recovered and 36% is undergoing treatment. Therefore, it appears that the Covid-19 pandemic is on its way down.