The epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak in Northern Ireland has been Belfast where there have been 23,231 confirmed cases and 389 deaths recorded by the Department of Health to date.
You can check the number of confirmed cases to date and in the last seven days and the total number of deaths in your council area by clicking on the map or by typing the name of your council in the search box. The map visualises the rates of positive cases per 100,000 of the population in the last seven days to highlight current hotspots.
The virus originated in the Wuhan province in China at the end of 2019, and the first confirmed case was reported in Northern Ireland on February 27, 2020.
By March 21, more than 100 confirmed cases had been reported. On March 25, the number of confirmed cases exceeded 200. On May 8, it topped 4,000. It exceeded 5,000 confirmed cases by the end of that month and only reached 6,000 at the start of August after the rate of infection slowed down in June and July.
But by the end of August, the number of confirmed infections reached 7,000 following a significant increase in the rate of transmission of the virus.
In September, the number of confirmed cases first exceeded 8,000 and then topped 9,000, 10,000 and 11,000 as authorities reimposed tough restrictions across Northern Ireland. On October 9, Northern Ireland recorded over 1,000 new cases of the virus in a single day for the first time. The total number of confirmed cases now exceeds 125,000.
The first hospital death in Northern Ireland was reported on March 19 and a week later, by March 26, that increased to 10.
And by April 6, there were over 1,000 cases and 70 confirmed deaths. By April 15, the death toll had sadly doubled to reach 140. The death toll in Northern Ireland passed 200 on April 20. On May 1, it hit 365 and exceeded 400 on May 5. On December 1, it passed the 1,000-mark.
On Friday, January 15 the Department of Health reported 26 deaths – the highest daily total.
The death toll now stands at 2,155.
According to Nisra, more than half of Northern Ireland’s Covid-19 related deaths came from care home residents at the height of the first wave.
There was criticism of health authorities for not testing enough people after contact tracing was stopped in March. Testing facilities have since been built around Northern Ireland, and contact tracing has now restarted and has been scaled up. A contact tracing app for Northern Ireland has also been launched.
On April 3 2020 the number of cases around the world hit one million, with over 50,000 confirmed deaths. A week later, by April 10, the official global death toll passed 100,000.
According to the Johns Hopkins’ Coronavirus Resource Center, there have now been over 178 million confirmed cases recorded globally, and over 3.8 million people have died. Over 172 million people have recovered from the infection across the world.
From April the epicentre of the pandemic moved from Europe to the US, where over 33 million cases have been recorded and over 602,000 people have died. A third wave of cases was recorded after a challenging summer. At the end of May, Brazil, where more than 502,000 people have died, emerged as another epicentre of the global pandemic.
In April 2021, India become the second most affected country after the USA. Officially, there have been over 29 million cases in India and more than 389,000 deaths but it is thought that the true figures are much higher.
The end of the summer saw a significant resurgence in cases across Europe, materialising fears of a second wave. As Europe became once again the epicentre of the pandemic in the autumn, European countries reimposed tight restrictions and lockdowns.
In the UK, where confirmed cases to date exceeds 4.6 million, the official death toll has reached over 128,000 and includes people who died within 28 days of a positive test across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The UK death toll is the highest in Europe. A total of 4,979 people have died in the Republic of Ireland with over 269k cases.
This article is regularly updated.
