As COVID-19 took over the world in 2020

Almost no place, no one has been saved.

The virus that emerged a year ago in Wuhan, China, swept the world in 2020 and wreaked havoc on its path. More than any event in memory, the pandemic has been a global event. On every continent, homes have felt their devastation: unemployment and closures, infirmity and death. And a permanent and relentless fear.

But each nation has its own story of how it faced off. How China used its authoritarian muscle to eliminate the coronavirus. How Brazil fought the pandemic even when its president mocked it. How the ultra-Orthodox Israelis cracked down on measures to curb the spread of the disease, intensifying the rift between them and their more secular neighbors.

Spain witnessed the deaths of thousands of elderly people. Kenyans watched as schools closed and children went to work, some as prostitutes. The draconian blockade of India reduced the rate of infection, but only temporarily and at a horrible cost.

At the end of the year, promising vaccines offer some hope amid a second wave of cresting contagion.

“Winter will be difficult, four long difficult months,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said as she announced new restrictions on life in Germany. “But it will end.”

Journalists from The Associated Press around the world assessed how the countries where they are published have resisted the pandemic and where those countries are at the peak of the second year of the contagion.

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The story of COVID-19 in BRAZIL is the story of a president who insists the pandemic is not big. Jair Bolsonaro condemned the quarantine of COVID-19, saying the shutdowns would destroy the economy and punish the poor. He mocked the “little flu,” and then trumpeted the fatalistic claim that nothing could stop 70% of Brazilians from falling ill. And he refused to take responsibility when many did. He allocated money to the economy to alleviate the pain of the pandemic. But while Bolsonaro may have inspired people to fall within reach, he instead encouraged them to ignore local restrictions.

Go deeper: Brazil’s leader mocks and toll rises

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Workers have returned to factories and offices, students are back in the classroom, and again queues are forming outside the popular hot restaurants. In cities, wearing a surgical mask, although no longer required outside the subway and other crowded places, has become a habit. In many ways, normal life has resumed in CHINA, the country where COVID-19 appeared a year ago. The ruling Communist Party of China has withdrawn some of the most important anti-disease controls ever imposed. The challenge is jobs: the economy is growing again, but the recovery is uneven.

Deepen: China’s state power crushes COVID-19

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The GERMAN enjoyed an almost relaxed summer with many restrictions lifted, the dividend of a quick response to the initial coronavirus outbreak, and the reliance on early, widespread testing that garnered numerous accolades. It reduced the number of daily cases of COVID-19 from a high of more than 6,000 in late March to the few hundred of the warmer months. But as people went about following the rules, the numbers began to rise to almost quadruple the March daily record, and the country is now in a new deadlock in trying to control the pandemic.

Learn more: early success, growing concern in Germany

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INDIA, a nation of 1.3 billion people, is likely to appear as the country with the highest coronavirus count in the world. It responded to the pandemic very soon with an abrupt closure across the country, but the number of cases increased as restrictions eased and its cruel public health system struggled to keep up. Questions have been raised about its unusually low mortality rate. Concerns about India’s virus are also multiplied by its difficult economy, which recorded its worst performance in at least two decades. It will be the hardest hit among the world’s major economies, even after the pandemic waned.

Deepen: India struggles to save lives, economy

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At first, Iranian officials downplayed COVID-19: they denied the growing number of infections, refused to close mosques, and made half-hearted gestures to close businesses. It was then. That’s it now: even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has worn disposable gloves while planting a tree for state media and prayed in an empty mosque to commemorate the holy Shiite commemoration of Ashoura. The coronavirus pandemic has only worsened in Iran over the course of the year, and has threatened everyone, from street workers to the upper part of the Islamic Republic. The virus has now sickened and killed senior officials, becoming perhaps Iran’s biggest threat since the turmoil and war that followed the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Deepen: Iran no longer has viral denial, fight

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When ISRAEL entered its second national coronavirus blockade in September, most of the country quickly complied with the closure. But in some ultra-Orthodox areas, synagogues were full, mourners crowded funerals and COVID-19 cases continued to skyrocket. The transgression of national security norms in ultra-Orthodox areas reinforced the popular perception that the community prioritizes faith over science and cares little for the greater good. It has also triggered a backlash that threatens to grow throughout Israeli society for years. Meanwhile, the neighboring Palestinian territories – the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – are facing their own crises.

Deepen: A virus is widening Israel’s religious cracks

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In late February, ITALY became the epicenter of COVID-19 in Europe and was a precautionary account of what happens when a healthcare system, even in one of the richest parts of the world, collapses under the weight of the sick and dead pandemic. When the second wave came in September, even the lessons learned from the first were not enough to save Italy’s disproportionately old population from devastation. Despite the plans and protocols, surveillance systems and machinery that were put in place to protect themselves from the expected fall attack, thousands more died and hospitals returned to the breaking point.

Learn more: Italy is becoming the viral epicenter of Europe

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The COVID-19 pandemic in JAPAN had a turbulent start in February when a luxury cruise ship returned to its home port near Tokyo carrying passengers and crew members; their infections exploded during their forties. The handling of the diamond princess sparked criticism for Japanese health workers to damage the quarantine, turning the ship into a virus incubator. Despite concerns about whether the country can survive future waves of infections, Japan has been spared the dangerous rises in the United States and Europe and hopes to host the Olympics next summer. Experts say the use of masks and border control have been key to keeping the number of Japanese cases low.

Deepen: Masks are key to keeping Japan’s number of cases low

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They say youth is a protective factor against COVID-19. In KENYA, the youth has suffered anyway. From children forced to work and prostitute themselves, to schools closed until 2021, from a child shot down by the police who apply the curfew, to babies born in desperate conditions, the effects of the pandemic on Kenya have fallen hard on young people. Growing economic pressures and Kenya’s intention to close schools for almost everyone until 2021 have put enormous pressure on children, who were suddenly left adrift by the millions. Some now divide the rocks into quarries or have engaged in prostitution or theft.

Learn more: Kenyan youth are suffering collateral damage

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For months, PERU held the painful first-ever world title in per capita deaths by COVID-19. It didn’t have to be that way. Decades of insufficient investment in public health, poor decisions at the onset of the pandemic, along with a strong inequality and shortage of life-saving products, such as medicinal oxygen, combined to create one of the deadliest outbreaks of the pandemic. world. Now the nation is facing parallel and paralyzing pain. According to a recent survey, 7 out of 10 Peruvians know someone who has died from the virus.

Deepen: the death toll in Peru leaves a nation in mourning

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In the most unequal country in the world, the disease affected the poor the most and the economic recession caused 42% unemployment. But SOUTH AFRICA had a secret weapon: health professionals veterans of the country’s long battles against HIV / AIDS and drug-resistant tuberculosis. The country’s leaders heeded his advice on how to treat the coronavirus, and while there have been ups and downs, the worst cases have yet to be met.

Learn more: South Africa is acting fast and dodging disaster

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In 2020, SPANIARDS has normalized unimaginable things just 12 months earlier. But 2020 will also fall like the year in which an unknown virus shook the foundations of the social contract and called into question a system that didn’t get as many deaths. Politicians presume the system did not collapse during that first wave, when the country recorded 929 deaths in a single day. But health professionals will tell you that the real cost was overworked staff who fell ill more than anywhere else in the world and suffered a huge emotional toll.

Go deeper: the Spanish system fails and the elderly die

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AMERICANS have been flooded by wave after wave of serious numbers: COVID-19 deaths in one hundred thousand, infections in millions. While these figures testify to a tragedy of historical proportions, they do not fully capture the multitude of ways, large and small, that the virus has revalued and reorganized daily life. For this, however, there are plenty of other numbers, some more familiar than others, but just as indicative in tracking the overall impact of the pandemic.

Deepen: the United States for the figures, revealing and horrible

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In MEXICO, the government did little other than ask its people to act responsibly. The result: more than 100,000 deaths, a figure that is presumed to be an understatement. In New Zealand, the government closed its borders and closed almost everything, preventing all deaths except one couple. Nations around the world ran the gamut in their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, sometimes moving from strict to lax measures over the course of a few months, or vice versa. A look at the state of the pandemic around the world.

Deepen: the nations appealed their answer

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On the web: an atlas of pandemics (http://apnews.com/PandemicAtlas )