3.2 And spread quickly across the world Ka horapa tere te KOWHEORI-19 ki te ao whānui

3.2. And spread quickly across the world | Ka horapa tere te KOWHEORI-19 ki te ao whānui

A world where international travel is common is one where viruses can spread quickly, particularly if many of the early symptoms look like the common flu or cold, or infected people are asymptomatic. Within six months there were outbreaks in many other countries (Figure 6). Initially, these outbreaks tended to be small and localised. This changed when the virus began to spread in the United States and northern Italy. This signalled the beginning of the next stage of what was to become the COVID-19 pandemic.

Figure 6: Total confirmed COVID-19 cases to 28 July 2020

Source: Our World in Data, based on data from World Health Organization
Notes: Due to limited testing and asymptomatic cases, the number of confirmed cases is lower than the true number of infections.