IT BEGAN on 9 January. In a hospital in Wuhan, China, a 61-year-old man became the first person on the planet confirmed to have died from a new coronavirus . At the time, scientists didn’t believe there was strong evidence of transmission between humans .

On 29 September, the global death toll reached a million people, after the virus spread out from Wuhan and exploded around the world. The true count is far higher and won’t be established for years, as many killed by the …