GIVEN HOW much the world has changed in 2020, it is hard to fathom that the year was just one leap-day longer than 2019. On January 16th The Economist published its first article about a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, which at that point had been confirmed only as the cause of 42 infections and one death. Two weeks later, covid-19 made its debut on our cover. It returned there on February 27th, and held the slot for ten consecutive issues. The topic has claimed seven more covers since then.
Is the pandemic the biggest news story ever? The two world wars and the Spanish flu of 1918 caused far more deaths, as have various famines and genocides. However, covid-19 has altered people’s daily routines in almost every country, in a way that deadlier events did not. Moreover, fatality counts cannot quantify developments that have changed people’s lives for the better.
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