World News for Students of English

21-12-2021 07:00

It’s been two years since patients in Wuhan, China, first began experiencing strange breathing problems. Nobody knew that it would be the start of a global illness which we now call COVID-19.

It was late in 2019 that the world first heard of a mysterious virus identified in China; however, health officials weren’t too concerned. The number of people sick around the world grew quickly, and in January 2020, there were sick people in the US and in Europe.

There were shortages for everything, and purchases of some things including toilet paper were limited. Then, fear and panic affected ordinary people and health care workers who thought they might get sick at work.

Leaders around the world tried to learn what to do to stop the spread of the disease, and hospitals quickly filled up. It was not clear how to test for the virus nor how to treat it, and the mortality rate was really high.

For two years, waves of the virus hit multiple peaks, with a big change in December 2020. At that time, scientists developed three vaccines, which was an amazing breakthrough in medical technology. Now, hospitals are experiencing yet another peak from mostly unvaccinated patients.

Difficult words: mortality rate (the number of deaths in a given area or period, or from a particular cause), peak (the highest point), breakthrough (an important discovery).

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