On Dec. 31, 2019, Chinese authorities alerted the World Health Organization of pneumonia cases in Wuhan City, Hubei province, China, with an unknown cause. What started as a mystery disease was first referred to as 2019-nCoV and then named COVID-19.
The timeline below tracks the development of the outbreak in 2021. For other developments, visit Devex’s COVID-19 timelines for 2020 and 2022.
Dec. 28 — India issues first emergency use authorization for Corbevax, a new COVID-19 vaccine developed by the Texas Children’s Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine in the U.S., and licensed to Indian biotech company Biological E. Limited. According to a press release, the vaccine is more than 90% effective against the “Ancestral-Wuhan strain” of COVID-19, and more than 80% effective against the delta variant in terms of preventing symptomatic infection.
About the authors
Jenny Lei Ravelo@JennyLeiRavelo
Jenny Lei Ravelo is a Devex Senior Reporter based in Manila. She covers global health, with a particular focus on the World Health Organization, and other development and humanitarian aid trends in Asia Pacific. Prior to Devex, she wrote for ABS-CBN, one of the largest broadcasting networks in the Philippines, and was a copy editor for various international scientific journals. She received her journalism degree from the University of Santo Tomas.
Sara Jervingsarajerving
Sara Jerving is a Senior Reporter at Devex, where she covers global health. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, VICE News, and Bloomberg News among others. Sara holds a master's degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she was a Lorana Sullivan fellow. She was a finalist for One World Media's Digital Media Award in 2021; a finalist for the Livingston Award for Young Journalists in 2018; and she was part of a VICE News Tonight on HBO team that received an Emmy nomination in 2018. She received the Philip Greer Memorial Award from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 2014.
