title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood was then offered the role of Benjamin L. Willard in Francis Coppola's "Apocalypse Now", but declined as he did not want to spend weeks on location in the Philippines. He also refused the part of a platoon leader in Ted Post's Vietnam War film, "Go Tell the Spartans" and instead decided to make a third "Dirty Harry" film, "The Enforcer" (1976). The film had Callahan partnered with a new female officer (Tyne Daly) to face a San Francisco Bay area group resembling the Symbionese Liberation Army. The film, culminating in a shootout on Alcatraz island, was considerably shorter than the previous "Dirty Harry" films at 95minutes, but was a major commercial success grossing $100 million worldwide to become Eastwood's highest-grossing film to date.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood directed and starred in "The Gauntlet" (1977) opposite Locke, Pat Hingle, William Prince, Bill McKinney, and Mara Corday. In this film, he portrays a down-and-out cop assigned to escort a prostitute from Las Vegas to Phoenix to testify against the mob. Although a moderate hit with the viewing public, critics had mixed feelings about the film, with many believing it was overly violent. Ebert, in contrast, gave the film three stars and called it "classic Clint Eastwood: fast, furious, and funny." In "Every Which Way but Loose" (1978) he has an uncharacteristic offbeat comedy role. His character, Philo Beddoe, is a trucker and brawler who roams the American West searching for a lost love (Locke) accompanied by his best friend, Orville Boggs (played by Geoffrey Lewis) and an orangutan called Clyde. The film proved surprisingly successful upon its release and became Eastwood's most commercially successful film up to that time. Panned by critics, it ranked high among the box-office successes of his career and was the second-highest-grossing film of 1978.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood starred in "Escape from Alcatraz" (1979), the last of his films directed by Siegel. It was based on the true story of Frank Lee Morris who, along with John and Clarence Anglin, escaped from the notorious Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary in 1962. The film was a major success; Stanley Kauffmann of "The New Republic" praised it as "crystalline cinema" and Frank Rich of "Time" described it as "cool, cinematic grace".


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood directed and played the title role in "Bronco Billy" (1980), alongside Locke, Scatman Crothers, and Sam Bottoms. Eastwood has cited "Bronco Billy" as being one of the most relaxed shoots of his career and biographer Richard Schickel argued that Bronco Billy is Eastwood's most self-referential character. The film was a commercial disappointment, but was liked by critics. Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote that film was "the best and funniest Clint Eastwood movie in quite a while", and praised Eastwood's directing, intricately juxtaposing the old West and the new West. Released later in 1980, "Any Which Way You Can" was the sequel to "Every Which Way but Loose" and also starring Eastwood. The film received a number of bad reviews from critics, although Maslin described it as "funnier and even better than its predecessor". In theaters over the Christmas season, "Any Which Way You Can" was a major box office success and ranked among the top five highest-grossing films of the year.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood directed and starred in "Honkytonk Man" (1982), based on the eponymous Clancy Carlile's depression-era novel. Eastwood portrays a struggling western singer Red Stovall who suffers from tuberculosis, but has finally been given an opportunity to make it big at the Grand Ole Opry. He is accompanied by his young nephew (played by real-life son Kyle) to Nashville, Tennessee, where he is supposed to record a song. Only "Time" gave the film a good review in the United States, with most reviewers criticizing its blend of muted humor and tragedy. Nevertheless, the film received a more positive reception in France, where it was compared to John Ford's "The Grapes of Wrath", and it has since acquired the very high rating of 93percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Around the same time, Eastwood directed, produced, and starred in the Cold War-themed "Firefox" (also 1982). Based on a 1977 novel with the same name written by Craig Thomas, the film was shot before but released after "Honkytonk Man". Russian filming locations were not possible due to the Cold War, and the film had to be shot in Vienna and other locations in Austria to simulate many of the Eurasian story locations. With a production cost of $20 million, it was Eastwood's highest budget film to that time. "People" magazine likened Eastwood's performance to "Luke Skywalker trapped in Dirty Harry's Soul".


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood directed and starred in the fourth "Dirty Harry" film, "Sudden Impact", which was shot in the spring and summer of 1983 and released that December. It is considered the darkest and most violent of the series. By this time, Eastwood received 60 percent of all profits from films he starred in and directed, with the rest going to the studio. "Sudden Impact" was his final on-screen collaboration with Locke. She plays an artist who, along with her sister, was gang-raped a decade before the story takes place and seeks revenge for her sister's now-vegetative state by systematically murdering the rapists. The line "Go ahead, make my day" (uttered by Eastwood during an early scene in a coffee shop) has been cited as one of cinema's immortal lines. It was quoted by President Ronald Reagan in a speech to Congress, and used during the 1984 presidential elections. The film was the second most commercially successful of the "Dirty Harry" films, after "The Enforcer", earning $70 million. It received very positive reviews, with many critics praising the feminist aspects of the film through its explorations of the physical and psychological consequences of rape.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: "Tightrope" (1984) had Eastwood starring opposite Geneviève Bujold in a provocative thriller, inspired by newspaper articles about an elusive Bay Area rapist. Set in New Orleans to avoid confusion with the "Dirty Harry" films, Eastwood played a divorced cop drawn into his target's tortured psychology and fascination for sadomasochism. "Tightrope" was a critical and commercial hit and became the fourth highest-grossing R-rated film of 1984. Eastwood next starred in the crime comedy "City Heat" (also 1984) alongside Burt Reynolds, a film about an ex-cop turned private eye and his former police lieutenant partner who get mixed up with gangsters in the Prohibition era of the 1930s. The film grossed around $50 million domestically, but was overshadowed by Eddie Murphy's "Beverly Hills Cop".


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood made his only foray into TV direction with the "Amazing Stories" episode "Vanessa in the Garden" (1985), which starred Harvey Keitel and Locke as a married couple. This was his first collaboration with Steven Spielberg, who later co-produced "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters from Iwo Jima". He would revisit the Western genre when he directed and starred in "Pale Rider" (1985), a film based on the classic western "Shane" (1953) and follows a preacher descending from the mists of the Sierras to side with the miners during the California Gold Rush of 1850. The title is a reference to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, as the rider of the pale horse is Death, and shows similarities to Eastwood's western "High Plains Drifter" (1973) in its themes of morality and justice as well as its exploration of the supernatural. It was hailed as one of the best films of 1985 and the best western to appear for a considerable period, with Gene Siskel of the "Chicago Tribune" remarking, "This year (1985) will go down in film history as the moment Clint Eastwood finally earned respect as an artist".


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood co-starred with Marsha Mason in the military drama "Heartbreak Ridge" (1986), about the 1983 United States invasion of Grenada. He portrays a United States Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant veteran of the Korean War and Vietnam War who realizes he is nearing the end of his military service. Production and filming were marred by internal disagreements between Eastwood and long-time friend and producer Fritz Manes, as well as between Eastwood and the United States Department of Defense who expressed contempt for the film. At the time, the film was a commercial rather than a critical success, and has only come to be viewed more favorably in recent times. The film grossed $70 million domestically.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood starred in "The Dead Pool" (1988), the fifth and final film in the "Dirty Harry" series. It co-starred Patricia Clarkson, Liam Neeson, and a young Jim Carrey who plays Johnny Squares, a drug-addled rock star and the first of the victims on a list of celebrities drawn up by horror film director Peter Swan (Neeson) who are deemed most likely to die, the so-called "Dead Pool". The list is stolen by an obsessed fan who, in mimicking his favorite director, makes his way through the list killing off celebrities, of which Dirty Harry is also included. "The Dead Pool" grossed nearly $38 million, relatively low receipts for a "Dirty Harry" film. It is generally viewed as the weakest film of the series, though Roger Ebert thought it was as good as the original.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood began working on smaller, more personal projects and experienced a lull in his career between 1988 and 1992. Always interested in jazz, he directed "Bird" (1988), a biopic starring Forest Whitaker as jazz musician Charlie "Bird" Parker. Alto saxophonist Jackie McLean and Spike Lee, son of jazz bassist Bill Lee and a long time critic of Eastwood, criticized the characterization of Charlie Parker remarking that it did not capture his true essence and sense of humor. Eastwood received two Golden Globes for the film, the Cecil B. DeMille Award for his lifelong contribution, and the Best Director award. However, "Bird" was a commercial failure, earning just $11 million, which Eastwood attributed to the declining interest in jazz among black people. Carrey would appear with Eastwood again in the poorly-received comedy "Pink Cadillac" (1989). The film is about a bounty hunter and a group of white supremacists chasing an innocent woman (Bernadette Peters) who tries to outrun everyone in her husband's prized pink Cadillac. The film failed both critically and commercially, earning barely more than "Bird" and marking a low point in Eastwood's career.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood directed and starred in "White Hunter Black Heart" (1990), an adaptation of Peter Viertel's "roman à clef", about John Huston and the making of the classic film "The African Queen". Shot on location in Zimbabwe in the summer of 1989, the film received some critical attention but with only a limited release earned just $8.4 million. Eastwood directed and co-starred with Charlie Sheen in "The Rookie", a buddy cop action film released in December 1990. Critics found the film's plot and characterization unconvincing, but praised its action sequences. An ongoing lawsuit, in response to Eastwood allegedly ramming a woman's car, resulted in no Eastwood films being shown in cinemas in 1991. Eastwood won the suit and agreed to pay the complainant's legal fees if she did not appeal.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood revisited the western genre in "Unforgiven" (1992), a film which he directed and starred in as an aging ex-gunfighter long past his prime. Scripts existed for the film as early as 1976 under titles such as "The Cut-Whore Killings" and "The William Munny Killings", but Eastwood delayed the project because he wanted to wait until he was old enough to play his character and to savor it as the last of his western films. "Unforgiven" was a major commercial and critical success; Jack Methews of the "Los Angeles Times" described it as "the finest classical western to come along since perhaps John Ford's 1956 "The Searchers". The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards, (including Best Actor for Eastwood and Best Original Screenplay for David Webb Peoples) and won four, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. In June 2008 "Unforgiven" was ranked as the fourth-best American western, behind "Shane", "High Noon", and "The Searchers" in the American Film Institute's "AFI's 10 Top 10" list.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood played Frank Horrigan in the Secret Service thriller "In the Line of Fire" (1993), directed by Wolfgang Petersen and co-starring John Malkovich and Rene Russo. Horrigan is a guilt-ridden Secret Service agent haunted by his failure to save John F. Kennedy's life. The film was among the top 10 box office performers in that year, earning $102 million in the United States alone, and 25 years after he was first listed on Quigley's Top Ten Money Making Stars Poll, Eastwood was voted number one again. A few months after film wrapped, Eastwood directed and co-starred alongside Kevin Costner in "A Perfect World" (also 1993). Set in the 1960s, Eastwood plays a Texas Ranger in pursuit of an escaped convict (Costner) who hits the road with a young boy (T.J. Lowther). Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" wrote that the film marked the highest point of Eastwood's directing career, and the film has since been cited as one of his most underrated directorial achievements.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: At the May1994 Cannes Film Festival Eastwood received France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal, and on March 27, 1995, he was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award at the 67th Academy Awards. His next film appearance was in a cameo role as himself in the children's film "Casper" (1995). He expanded his repertoire by playing opposite Meryl Streep in "The Bridges of Madison County" (also 1995). Based on the novel by Robert James Waller, the film relates the story of Robert Kincaid (Eastwood), a photographer working for "National Geographic" who, while photographing historic covered bridges in Iowa, meets and has an affair with an Italian-born farm wife, Francesca (Streep). Despite the novel receiving unfavorable reviews, "The Bridges of Madison County" film was a commercial and critical success. Roger Ebert wrote, "Streep and Eastwood weave a spell, and it is based on that particular knowledge of love and self that comes with middle age." The film was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Picture and won a César Award in France for Best Foreign Film. Streep was also nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood directed and starred in the political thriller "Absolute Power" (1997), alongside Gene Hackman (with whom he had appeared in "Unforgiven"). Eastwood played the role of a veteran thief who witnesses the Secret Service cover-up of a murder. The film received a mixed reception from critics. Later in 1997, Eastwood directed "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil", based on the novel by John Berendt and starring John Cusack, Kevin Spacey, and Jude Law. The film met with a mixed critical response.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood directed and starred in "True Crime" (1999). He plays Steve Everett, a journalist and recovering alcoholic, who has to cover the execution of murderer Frank Beechum (played by Isaiah Washington). "True Crime" received a mixed reception, with Janet Maslin of "The New York Times" writing, "his direction is galvanized by a sense of second chances and tragic misunderstandings, and by contrasting a larger sense of justice with the peculiar minutiae of crime. Perhaps he goes a shade too far in the latter direction, though." The film was a box office failure, earning less than half its $55 million budget and was Eastwood's worst-performing film of the 1990s aside from "White Hunter Black Heart", which had a limited release.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood directed and starred in "Space Cowboys" (2000) alongside Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner. Eastwood played one of a group of veteran ex-test pilots sent into space to repair an old Soviet satellite. The original music score was composed by Eastwood and Lennie Niehaus. "Space Cowboys" was critically well-received and holds a 79 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes, although Roger Ebert wrote that the film was, "too secure within its traditional story structure to make much seem at risk." The film grossed more than $90 million in its United States release, more than Eastwood's two previous films combined. Eastwood played an ex-FBI agent chasing a sadistic killer (Jeff Daniels) in the thriller "Blood Work" (2002), loosely based on the 1998 novel of the same name by Michael Connelly. The film was a commercial failure, grossing just $26.2 million on an estimated budget of $50 million and received mixed reviews, with Rotten Tomatoes describing it as, "well-made but marred by lethargic pacing".


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood directed and scored the crime drama "Mystic River" (2003), a film dealing with themes of murder, vigilantism and sexual abuse and starring Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins. The film was praised by critics and won two Academy Awards – Best Actor for Penn and Best Supporting Actor for Robbins – with Eastwood garnering nominations for Best Director and Best Picture. The film grossed $90million domestically on a budget of $30million. In 2003, Eastwood was named Best Director of the Year by the National Society of Film Critics.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: The following year, Eastwood found further critical acclaim with "Million Dollar Baby". The boxing drama won four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress (Hilary Swank) and Best Supporting Actor (Morgan Freeman). At age 74, Eastwood became the oldest of eighteen directors to have directed two or more Best Picture winners. He also received a nomination for Best Actor, as well as a Grammy nomination for his score, and won a Golden Globe for Best Director, which was presented to him by daughter Kathryn, who was Miss Golden Globe at the 2005 ceremony. A. O. Scott of "The New York Times" lauded the film as a "masterpiece" and the best film of the year.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood directed two films about World War II's Battle of Iwo Jima released in 2006. The first, "Flags of Our Fathers", focused on the men who raised the American flag on top of Mount Suribachi and featured the film debut of Eastwood's son Scott. This was followed by "Letters from Iwo Jima", which dealt with the tactics of the Japanese soldiers on the island and the letters they wrote home to family members. "Letters from Iwo Jima" was the first American film to depict a war issue completely from the view of an American enemy. Both films received praise from critics and garnered several nominations at the 79th Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Original Screenplay for "Letters from Iwo Jima". At the 64th Golden Globe Awards Eastwood received nominations for Best Director in both films. "Letters from Iwo Jima" won the award for Best Foreign Language Film.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood next directed "Changeling" (2008), based on a true story set in the late 1920s. Angelina Jolie stars as a woman reunited with her missing son only to realize he is an impostor. After its release at several film festivals the film grossed over $110 million, the majority of which came from foreign markets. The film was highly acclaimed, with Damon Wise of "Empire" describing "Changeling" as "flawless". Todd McCarthy of "Variety" magazine described it as "emotionally powerful and stylistically sure-handed" and that the film's characters and social commentary were brought into the story with an "almost breathtaking deliberation". For the film, Eastwood received nominations for Best Original Score at the 66th Golden Globe Awards, Best Direction at the 62nd British Academy Film Awards and director of the year from the London Film Critics' Circle.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood ended a four-year "self-imposed acting hiatus" by appearing in "Gran Torino" (also 2008), which he also directed, produced and partly scored with his son Kyle and Jamie Cullum. Biographer Marc Eliot called Eastwood's role "an amalgam of the Man with No Name, Dirty Harry, and William Munny, here aged and cynical but willing and able to fight on whenever the need arose". "Gran Torino" grossed almost $30 million during its opening weekend release in January 2009, the highest of his career as an actor or director. "Gran Torino" eventually grossed over $268 million in theaters worldwide, becoming the highest-grossing film of Eastwood's career so far (without adjustment for inflation).


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood's 30th directorial outing came with "Invictus" (2009), a film based on the story of the South African team at the 1995 Rugby World Cup with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela, Matt Damon as rugby team captain François Pienaar and Grant L. Roberts as Ruben Kruger. The film was met with generally positive reviews; Roger Ebert gave it three and a half stars and described it as a "very good film... with moments evoking great emotion," while "Variety" Todd McCarthy wrote, "Inspirational on the face of it, Clint Eastwood's film has a predictable trajectory, but every scene brims with surprising details that accumulate into a rich fabric of history, cultural impressions and emotion." For the film, Eastwood was nominated for Best Director at the 67th Golden Globe Awards.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: In the Eastwood-directed "Hereafter" (2010), he again worked with Matt Damon, who portrayed a psychic. The film had its world premiere on September 12, 2010, at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival and had a limited release later in October. "Hereafter" received mixed reviews from critics, with the consensus at Rotten Tomatoes being, "Despite a thought-provoking premise and Clint Eastwood's typical flair as director, "Hereafter" fails to generate much compelling drama, straddling the line between poignant sentimentality and hokey tedium." Around the same time, Eastwood served as executive producer for a Turner Classic Movies (TCM) documentary about jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, "" (also 2010), to commemorate Brubeck's 90th birthday.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood directed "J. Edgar" (2011), a biopic of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, with Leonardo DiCaprio in the title role. The film received mixed reviews, although DiCaprio's performance as Hoover was widely praised. Roger Ebert wrote that the film is "fascinating", "masterful", and praised DiCaprio's performance. David Edelstein of "New York Magazine", while also praising DiCaprio, wrote, "It's too bad "J. Edgar" is so shapeless and turgid and ham-handed, so rich in bad lines and worse readings". Eastwood starred in the baseball drama "Trouble with the Curve" (2012), as a veteran baseball scout who travels with his daughter for a final scouting trip. Robert Lorenz, who worked with Eastwood as an assistant director on several films, directed the film.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: During Super Bowl XLVI, Eastwood narrated a halftime advertisement for Chrysler titled "Halftime in America" (2012). The advertisement was criticized by several U.S. Republicans, who claimed it implied that President Barack Obama deserved a second term. In response to the criticism, Eastwood stated, "I am certainly not politically affiliated with Mr. Obama. It was meant to be a message about job growth and the spirit of America."


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood next directed "Jersey Boys" (2014), a musical biography based on the Tony Award-winning musical. The film told the story of the musical group The Four Seasons. Eastwood directed "American Sniper" (also 2014), a film adaptation of Chris Kyle's eponymous memoir, following Steven Spielberg's departure from the project. The film was released on December 25, 2014. "American Sniper" grossed more than $350 million domestically and over $547 million globally, making it one of Eastwood's biggest movies commercially. His next film, "Sully", starred Tom Hanks as Chesley Sullenberger, who successfully landed the US Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River in an emergency landing, keeping all passengers on board alive. Released in the United States in September 2016, it became another commercial success for Eastwood, grossing over $238 million worldwide. He directed the biographical thriller "" (2018), which saw previously non-professional actors Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler and Alek Skarlatos playing themselves as they stop the 2015 Thalys train attack. The film received a generally negative reception from critics, who were largely critical of the acting by the three leads. Eastwood next starred in and directed "The Mule", which was released in December 2018. He played Earl Stone, an elderly drug smuggler based on Leo Sharp, Eastwood's first acting role since "Trouble with the Curve" in 2012.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: In May 2019, it was announced that Eastwood would direct "The Ballad of Richard Jewell", based on the life of heroic security guard Richard Jewell, who was wrongly suspected in the 1996 Olympic bombing. Later retitled simply "Richard Jewell", Eastwood directed and produced the film, through Warner Bros., his tenth straight film with the company. Jonah Hill and Leonardo DiCaprio were originally set to star in the film in 2014, when it was to be directed by Paul Greengrass, but DiCaprio and Hill would ultimately serve only as producers on Eastwood's film. The film stars Paul Walter Hauser in the titular role, along with Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm, and Olivia Wilde in supporting roles. Filming began on June 24, 2019, and "Richard Jewell" was released on December 13, 2019.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: In October 2020, it was announced that Eastwood would direct, produce, and star in "Cry Macho", an adaptation of the 1975 novel of the same name, for Warner Bros. Pictures. Production of the film took place in New Mexico between November and December 2020. It was released on September 17, 2021, to mixed reviews and commercial failure.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Beginning with the thriller "Play Misty for Me", Eastwood has directed over 30 films, including Westerns, action films, musicals and dramas. He is one of few top Hollywood actors to have also become a critically and commercially successful director. "The New Yorker"s David Denby wrote that, unlike Eastwood,


title: Clint Eastwood

text: From the very early days of his career, Eastwood was frustrated by directors' insistence that scenes be re-shot multiple times and perfected, and when he began directing in 1970, he made a conscious attempt to avoid any aspects of directing he had been indifferent to as an actor. As a result, Eastwood is renowned for his efficient film directing and ability to reduce filming time and control budgets. He usually avoids actors' rehearsing and prefers to complete most scenes on the first take. Eastwood's rapid filmmaking practices have been compared to those of Woody Allen, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Godard, and the Coen brothers. When acting in others' films, he sometimes takes over directing, such as for "The Outlaw Josey Wales", if he believes production is too slow. In preparation for filming Eastwood rarely uses storyboards for developing the layout of a shooting schedule. He also attempts to reduce script background details on characters to allow the audience to become more involved in the film, considering their imagination a requirement for a film that connects with viewers. Eastwood has indicated that he lays out a film's plot to provide the audience with necessary details, but not "so much that it insults their intelligence."


title: Clint Eastwood

text: According to "Life" magazine, "Eastwood's style is to shoot first and act afterward. He etches his characters virtually without words. He has developed the art of underplaying to the point that anyone around him who so much as flinches looks hammily histrionic." Interviewers Richard Thompson and Tim Hunter commented that Eastwood's films are "superbly paced: unhurried; cool; and [give] a strong sense of real time, regardless of the speed of the narrative", while Ric Gentry considers Eastwood's pacing "unrushed and relaxed". Eastwood is fond of low-key lighting and back-lighting to give his films a "noir-ish" feel.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood's frequent exploration of ethical values has drawn the attention of scholars, who have explored Eastwood's work from ethical and theological perspectives, including his portrayal of justice, mercy, suicide and the angel of death.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood is a former Republican who has sometimes supported Democrats, and has long shown an interest in California politics; he is currently a registered Libertarian.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: He won election as the nonpartisan mayor of Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, in April 1986. He earned $200 per month in that position which he donated to the Carmel Youth Center. While in office, he helped to make ice cream legal to consume on city streets, added public restrooms to the public beach, and a city library annex building was built. He served for two years and declined to run for a second term. In 2001, Governor Gray Davis appointed him to the California State Park and Recreation Commission, where he led opposition to an extension of the toll six-lane extension of the California State Route 241 toll road through San Onofre State Beach.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood endorsed Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election. He delivered a primetime address at the 2012 Republican National Convention, where he drew attention for a speech he delivered to an empty chair representing President Barack Obama, which he later regretted. On February 22, 2020, Eastwood announced that he would be endorsing Democrat Michael Bloomberg in the 2020 presidential election. Eastwood stated that he wishes that Trump would act "in a more genteel way, without tweeting and calling people names. I would personally like for him to not bring himself to that level."


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood is an aficionado of jazz—particularly bebop, blues, country and western and classical music. He dabbled in music early on by developing as a boogie-woogie pianist and had originally intended to pursue a career in music by studying for a music theory degree after graduating from high school. In late 1959, Eastwood produced the album "Cowboy Favorites", released on the Cameo label, which included some classics such as Bob Wills's "San Antonio Rose" and Cole Porter's "Don't Fence Me In". Despite his attempts to plug the album by going on a tour, it never reached the "Billboard" Hot 100. In 1963, Cameo producer Kal Mann told him that "he would never make it big as a singer". Nevertheless, during the off season of filming "Rawhide", Eastwood and Paul Brinegarsometimes joined by Sheb Wooleytoured rodeos, state fairs, and festivals. In 1962, their act, entitled Amusement Business Cavalcade of Fairs, earned them as much as $15,000 a performance. Although he never made it as a major performing artist, he has passed on the influence to his son, Kyle, who is a professional jazz bassist and composer. An audiophile, Eastwood owns an extensive collection of LPs which he plays on a Rockport turntable. His favorite musicians include saxophonists Charlie Parker and Lester Young, pianists Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck, and Fats Waller, and Delta bluesman Robert Johnson.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood has his own Warner Bros. Records-distributed imprint, Malpaso Records, as part of his deal with Warner Brothers. This deal was unchanged when Warner Music Group was sold by Time Warner to private investors. Malpaso Records, which has released all of the scores of Eastwood's films from "The Bridges of Madison County" onward, has also released the album of a 1996 jazz concert he hosted, titled "Eastwood after Hours – Live at Carnegie Hall". He composed the film scores of "Mystic River", "Million Dollar Baby", "Flags of Our Fathers", "Grace Is Gone", "Changeling", "Hereafter", "J. Edgar", and the original piano compositions for "In the Line of Fire". He wrote and performed the song heard over the credits of "Gran Torino" and also co-wrote "Why Should I Care" with Linda Thompson and Carole Bayer Sager, a song recorded in 1999 by Diana Krall.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: The music in "Grace Is Gone" received two Golden Globe nominations by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for the 65th Golden Globe Awards. Eastwood was nominated for Best Original Score, while the song "Grace is Gone" with music by Eastwood and lyrics by Carole Bayer Sager was nominated for Best Original Song. It won the Satellite Award for Best Song at the 12th Satellite Awards. "Changeling" was nominated for Best Score at the 14th Critics' Choice Awards, Best Original Score at the 66th Golden Globe Awards, and Best Music at the 35th Saturn Awards. On September 22, 2007, Eastwood was awarded an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the Berklee College of Music at the Monterey Jazz Festival, on which he serves as an active board member. Upon receiving the award he gave a speech claiming, "It's one of the great honors I'll cherish in this lifetime."


title: Clint Eastwood

text: The scoring stage at Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank was renamed the Eastwood Scoring Stage in the 1990s.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Twice divorced, Eastwood has had numerous casual and serious relationships of varying length and intensity over his life, many of which overlapped. He has eight known children by six women, only half of whom were contemporaneously acknowledged. Eastwood refuses to confirm his exact number of offspring, and there have been wide discrepancies in the media regarding the number. He is closed to discussing his families with the media, stating, "they're vulnerable people. I can protect myself, but they can't." His biographer, Patrick McGilligan, has stated on camera that Eastwood's total number of children is unclear and that "one was when he was still in high school."


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood's first marriage was to manufacturing secretary Margaret Neville Johnson in December 1953, having met her on a blind date the previous May. During the courtship, he had an affair that resulted in his daughter, Laurie (born 1954), who was adopted by Clyde and Helen Warren of Seattle. While the identity of Laurie's biological mother is not public record, McGilligan said the mother belonged to a theatre group Eastwood participated in. Eastwood continued having affairs while married to Johnson, including a 1959 to 1973 liaison with stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis that produced a daughter, Kimber (born 1964).


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Johnson tolerated the open marriage with Eastwood, and eventually they had two children, Kyle (born 1968) and Alison (born 1972). In 1975, Eastwood and married actress-director Sondra Locke began living together; she had been in a marriage of convenience since 1967 with Gordon Anderson, an unemployed homosexual. Locke claimed that Eastwood sang "She Made Me Monogamous" to her and confided he had "never been in love before". Eastwood finally divorced Johnson in 1984. Locke remained married to Anderson until her death in 2018.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: In an unpublicized affair, Eastwood sired two legally fatherless children, Scott (born 1986) and Kathryn (born 1988) with Jacelyn Reeves, a flight attendant. When Locke and Eastwood separated in 1989, Locke filed a palimony lawsuit and later sued for fraud, reaching a settlement in both cases. During the early-to-mid-1990s, Eastwood had a relationship with actress Frances Fisher that produced a daughter, Francesca (born 1993). Eastwood was married for the second time in 1996 to news anchor Dina Ruiz, who gave birth to their daughter Morgan that same year. Ruiz and Eastwood's marriage lasted until 2014.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Since 2014, Eastwood has been seen in company with restaurant hostess Christina Sandera, though several news outlets noted in 2015 that neither confirmed a romance. Previously, Eastwood's longtime manager professed to have no knowledge of his client's private life.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood has been a health and fitness fanatic since he was a teenager. During the production of "Rawhide", Eastwood featured in magazines and journals, which often documented his health-conscious lifestyle. In an August 1959 edition of "TV Guide", for example, Eastwood was photographed doing push-ups. He gave tips on fitness and nutrition, telling people to eat plenty of fruit and raw vegetables, to take vitamins, and to avoid sugar-loaded beverages, excessive alcohol, and overloading on carbohydrates.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood's father's death from a heart attack at the age of 64 in 1970, described by Fritz Manes as "the only bad thing that ever happened to him in his life", came as a shock to Eastwood, since his grandfather had lived to be 92. It had a profound impact on his life; from then on he became more productive, working with greater speed and efficiency on set, and adopted an even more rigorous health regimen. Despite abstaining from hard liquor, he opened an old English-inspired pub called the Hog's Breath Inn in Carmel-by-the-Sea in 1971. Eastwood eventually sold the pub in 1999 and now owns the Mission Ranch Hotel and Restaurant, also located in Carmel-by-the-Sea.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood is an avid golfer and owns the Tehàma Golf Club. He is an investor in the world-renowned Pebble Beach Golf Links west of Carmel and donates his time to charitable causes at major tournaments. Eastwood is an FAA licensed fixed wing and rotary craft private pilot and often flies his helicopter to the studios to avoid traffic.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: In 1973, Eastwood told the film critic Gene Siskel, "No, I don't believe in God". Eastwood has said that he finds spirituality in nature (as suggested by his Western, "Pale Rider", 1985), stating that "I was born during the Depression and I was brought up with no specific church. We moved every four or five months during the first 14 years of my life, so I was sent to a different church depending on wherever we lived. Most of them were Protestant, but I went to other churches because my parents wanted me to try to figure out things for myself. They always said, 'I just want to expose you to some religious order and see if that's something you like'. So although my religious training was not really specific, I do feel spiritual things. If I stand on the side of the Grand Canyon and look down, it moves me in some way." He has also said: "It would be wonderful to talk with my parents again, who are, of course, deceased. It makes the idea of death much less scary. But then again, if you think that nothing happens after you die, maybe it makes you live life better. Maybe you're supposed to do the best you can by the gift you're given of life and that alone."


title: Clint Eastwood

text: In 1975, Eastwood publicly proclaimed his participation in Transcendental Meditation when he appeared on "The Merv Griffin Show" with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of Transcendental Meditation. He has meditated every morning for years.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: While serving in the US Army at nearby Fort Ord Eastwood developed an interest in Carmel area real estate. With income from his acting career, on December 24, 1967 he bought five parcels totaling of land from Charles Sawyer along Highway 1 near Malpaso Creek, south of the Carmel Highlands. He named his production company Malpaso Productions. Eastwood later bought another parcel, together totaling . In 1995, Monterey County bought the land from him for $3.08 million and placed a permanent conservation easement on the Malpaso property. Using the proceeds from the sale, Eastwood bought the Odello Ranch at the mouth of the Carmel River during the same year. He paid to lower the levees along the southern side of the Carmel River to protect the Mission Ranch resort he owned, along with the neighboring Mission Fields residential neighborhood on the north side of the river, both of which were flooded in 1994. In 1997, Eastwood and his former wife Maggie Johnson (acting as the Eastwood Trust) donated of the Odello Ranch property east of Highway 1 to the Big Sur Land Trust along with the associated water rights. On June 28, 2016, Eastwood finally donated the remaining Odello East land.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: In 2010 at age 80, Eastwood spent approximately $20 million to build himself a 15,949-square-foot compound in Carmel-by-the-Sea. His California real estate portfolio also includes a 6,136-square-foot Spanish-style mansion in Bel-Air, the 1,067.5 acre Rising River Ranch near Cassel, an apartment in Burbank, a 5,575-square-foot Desert modern home in La Quinta (sometimes misidentified as Palm Springs), as well as a large but understated house located next door to his longtime primary Bel-Air residence. Eastwood is known to have purchased property in two other states. He owns a 5,700-square-foot house in Sun Valley, Idaho and a 1.13-acre, oceanfront manor in Kihei, Hawaii. The latter was featured in an episode of the 2012 reality show "Mrs. Eastwood & Company".


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood has contributed to over 50films over his career as actor, director, producer, and composer. He has acted in several television series, including his co-starring role in "Rawhide". He started directing in 1971, and made his debut as a producer in 1982 with "Firefox", though he had been functioning as uncredited producer on all of his Malpaso Company films since "Hang 'Em High" in 1968. Eastwood also has contributed music to his films, either through performing, writing, or composing. He has mainly starred in western, action, and drama films. According to the box office–revenue tracking website Box Office Mojo, films featuring Eastwood have grossed a total of more than $1.81 billion domestically, with an average of $38.6 million per film.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood has been recognized with multiple awards and nominations for his work in film, television, and music. His widest reception has been in film work, for which he has received Academy Awards, Directors Guild of America Awards, Golden Globe Awards, and People's Choice Awards, among others. Eastwood is one of only two people to have been twice nominated for Best Actor and Best Director for the same film ("Unforgiven" and "Million Dollar Baby") the other being Warren Beatty ("Heaven Can Wait" and "Reds"). Along with Beatty, Robert Redford, Richard Attenborough, Kevin Costner, and Mel Gibson, he is one of the few directors best known as an actor to win an Academy Award for directing. On February 27, 2005, he became one of only three living directors (along with Miloš Forman and Francis Ford Coppola) to have directed two Best Picture winners. At the age of 74, he was the oldest recipient of the Academy Award for Best Director to date. Eastwood has directed five actors in Academy Award-winning performances: Gene Hackman in "Unforgiven", Tim Robbins and Sean Penn in "Mystic River", and Morgan Freeman and Hilary Swank in "Million Dollar Baby".


title: Clint Eastwood

text: On August 22, 1984, Eastwood was honored at a ceremony at Grauman's Chinese theater to record his hand and footprints in cement. Eastwood received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 1996, and received an honorary degree from AFI in 2009. On December 6, 2006, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Eastwood into the California Hall of Fame located at The California Museum for History, Women, and the Arts.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: In early 2007, Eastwood was presented with the highest civilian distinction in France, Légion d'honneur, at a ceremony in Paris. French President Jacques Chirac told Eastwood that he embodied "the best of Hollywood". In October 2009, he was honored by the Lumière Award (in honor of the Lumière Brothers, inventors of the Cinematograph) during the first edition of the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon, France. This award honors his entire career and his major contribution to the 7th Art. In February 2010, Eastwood was recognized by President Barack Obama with an arts and humanities award. Obama described Eastwood's films as "essays in individuality, hard truths and the essence of what it means to be American."


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood has also been awarded at least three honorary degrees from universities and colleges, including an honorary degree from the University of the Pacific in 2006, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of Southern California on May 27, 2007, and an honorary Doctor of Music degree from the Berklee College of Music at the Monterey Jazz Festival on September 22, 2007.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: On July 22, 2009, Eastwood was honored by Emperor Akihito of Japan with the Order of the Rising Sun, 3rd class, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon for his contributions to the enhancement of Japan–United States relations.


title: Clint Eastwood

text: Eastwood won the Golden Pine lifetime achievement award at the 2013 International Samobor Film Music Festival, along with Ryuichi Sakamoto and Gerald Fried.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified in an outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019. Attempts to contain it there failed, allowing the virus to spread to other areas of Asia and later worldwide. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern on 30 January 2020, and a pandemic on 11 March 2020. As of , the pandemic had caused more than cases and confirmed deaths, making it one of the deadliest in history.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: COVID-19 symptoms range from undetectable to deadly, but most commonly include fever, dry cough, and fatigue. Severe illness is more likely in elderly patients and those with certain underlying medical conditions. COVID-19 transmits when people breathe in air contaminated by droplets and small airborne particles containing the virus. The risk of breathing these in is highest when people are in close proximity, but they can be inhaled over longer distances, particularly indoors. Transmission can also occur if contaminated fluids reach the eyes, nose, or mouth, or, more rarely, via contaminated surfaces. Infected individuals are typically contagious for 10 days and can spread the virus even if they do not develop symptoms. Mutations have produced many strains (variants) with varying degrees of infectivity and virulence.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The COVID-19 vaccines have been approved and widely distributed in various countries since December 2020. According to a June 2022 study, COVID-19 vaccines prevented an additional 14.4 million to 19.8 million deaths in 185 countries and territories from 8 December 2020, to 8 December 2021. Other recommended preventive measures include social distancing, wearing masks, improving ventilation and air filtration, and quarantining those who have been exposed or are symptomatic. Treatments include novel antiviral drugs and symptom control. Public health mitigation measures include travel restrictions, lockdowns, business restrictions and closures, workplace hazard controls, quarantines, testing systems, and contact tracing of the infected, which, together with treatments, serve to bring about the control and eventual end of the pandemic.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The pandemic has triggered severe social and economic disruption around the world, including the largest global recession since the Great Depression. Widespread supply shortages, including food shortages, were caused by supply chain disruptions. Reduced human activity saw an unprecedented decrease in pollution. Educational institutions and public areas were partially or fully closed in many jurisdictions, and many events were cancelled or postponed during 2020 and 2021. Misinformation has circulated through social media and mass media, and political tensions have intensified. The pandemic has raised issues of racial and geographic discrimination, health equity, and the balance between public health imperatives and individual rights.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: While the WHO considers the pandemic global and ongoing , some countries are transitioning their public health approach towards regarding SARS-CoV-2 as an endemic virus.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The pandemic is known by several names. It is sometimes referred to as the "coronavirus pandemic" despite the existence of other human coronaviruses that have caused epidemics and outbreaks (e.g. SARS).


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: During the initial outbreak in Wuhan, the virus and disease were commonly referred to as "coronavirus", "Wuhan coronavirus", "the coronavirus outbreak" and the "Wuhan coronavirus outbreak", with the disease sometimes called "Wuhan pneumonia". In January 2020, the WHO recommended 2019-nCoV and 2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease as interim names for the virus and disease per 2015 international guidelines against using geographical locations (e.g. Wuhan, China), animal species, or groups of people in disease and virus names in part to prevent social stigma. WHO finalized the official names COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2 on 11 February 2020. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus explained: COfor "corona", VIfor "virus", Dfor "disease" and 19 for when the outbreak was first identified (31 December 2019). WHO additionally uses "the COVID-19 virus" and "the virus responsible for COVID-19" in public communications.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: WHO names variants of concern and variants of interest using Greek letters. The initial practice of naming them according to where the variants were identified (e.g. Delta began as the "Indian variant") is no longer common. A more systematic naming scheme reflects the variant's PANGO lineage (e.g., Omicron's lineage is B.1.1.529) and is used for other variants.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: SARS-CoV-2 is a newly discovered virus that is closely related to bat coronaviruses, pangolin coronaviruses, and SARS-CoV. The first known outbreak started in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in November 2019. Many early cases were linked to people who had visited the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market there, but it is possible that human-to-human transmission began earlier.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The scientific consensus is that the virus is most likely of a zoonotic origin, from bats or another closely-related mammal. Despite this, the subject has generated extensive speculation about alternative origins. The origin controversy heightened geopolitical divisions, notably between the United States and China.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The earliest known infected person fell ill on 1December 2019. That individual did not have a connection with the later wet market cluster. However, an earlier case may have occurred on 17 November. Two-thirds of the initial case cluster were linked with the market. Molecular clock analysis suggests that the index case is likely to have been infected between mid-October and mid-November 2019.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Official "case" counts refer to the number of people who have been tested for COVID-19 and whose test has been confirmed positive according to official protocols whether or not they experienced symptomatic disease. Due to the effect of sampling bias, studies which obtain a more accurate number by extrapolating from a random sample have consistently found that total infections considerably exceed the reported case counts. Many countries, early on, had official policies to not test those with only mild symptoms. The strongest risk factors for severe illness are obesity, complications of diabetes, anxiety disorders, and the total number of conditions.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: In early 2020, a meta-analysis of self-reported cases in China by age indicated that a relatively low proportion of cases occurred in individuals under 20. It was not clear whether this was because young people were less likely to be infected, or less likely to develop symptoms and be tested. A retrospective cohort study in China found that children and adults were just as likely to be infected.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Among more thorough studies, preliminary results from 9 April 2020, found that in Gangelt, the centre of a major infection cluster in Germany, 15 per cent of a population sample tested positive for antibodies. Screening for COVID-19 in pregnant women in New York City, and blood donors in the Netherlands, found rates of positive antibody tests that indicated more infections than reported. Seroprevalence-based estimates are conservative as some studies show that persons with mild symptoms do not have detectable antibodies.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Initial estimates of the basic reproduction number (R) for COVID-19 in January 2020 were between 1.4 and 2.5, but a subsequent analysis claimed that it may be about 5.7 (with a 95 per cent confidence interval of 3.8 to 8.9).


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: In December 2021, the number of cases continued to climb due to several factors, including new COVID-19 variants. As of that 28December, 282,790,822 individuals worldwide had been confirmed as infected. , over 500 million cases were confirmed globally. Most cases are unconfirmed, with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation estimating the true number of cases as of early 2022 to be in the billions.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: As of , more than deaths had been attributed to COVID-19. The first confirmed death was in Wuhan on 9 January 2020. These numbers vary by region and over time, influenced by testing volume, healthcare system quality, treatment options, government response, time since the initial outbreak, and population characteristics, such as age, sex, and overall health.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Multiple measures are used to quantify mortality. Official death counts typically include people who died after testing positive. Such counts exclude deaths without a test. Conversely, deaths of people who died from underlying conditions following a positive test may be included. Countries such as Belgium include deaths from suspected cases, including those without a test, thereby increasing counts.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Official death counts have been claimed to underreport the actual death toll, because excess mortality (the number of deaths in a period compared to a long-term average) data show an increase in deaths that is not explained by COVID-19 deaths alone. Using such data, estimates of the true number of deaths from COVID-19 worldwide have included a range from 16.6 to 28.3 million by "The Economist", as well as over 10.3 million by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and ≈18.2 million (earlier) deaths between 1 January 2020, and 31 December 2021, by a comprehensive international study.<ref name="10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02796-3">News article about the study: </ref> Such deaths include deaths due to healthcare capacity constraints and priorities, as well as reluctance to seek care (to avoid possible infection). Further research may help distinguish the proportions directly caused by COVID-19 from those caused by indirect consequences of the pandemic.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: In May 2022, the WHO estimated the number of excess deaths to be 14.9 million compared to 5.4 million reported COVID-19 deaths, with the majority of the unreported 9.5 million deaths believed to be direct deaths due the virus, rather than indirect deaths. Some deaths were because people with other conditions could not access medical services.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The time between symptom onset and death ranges from6 to 41 days, typically about 14 days. Mortality rates increase as a function of age. People at the greatest mortality risk are the elderly and those with underlying conditions.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The infection fatality ratio (IFR) is the cumulative number of deaths attributed to the disease divided by the cumulative number of infected individuals (including asymptomatic and undiagnosed infections and excluding vaccinated infected individuals). It is expressed in percentage points (not as a decimal). Other studies refer to this metric as the 'infection fatality risk'.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: In November 2020, a review article in "Nature" reported estimates of population-weighted IFRs for various countries, excluding deaths in elderly care facilities, and found a median range of 0.24% to 1.49%.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: IFRs rise as a function of age (from 0.002% at age 10 and 0.01% at age 25, to 0.4% at age 55, 1.4% at age 65, 4.6% at age 75, and 15% at age 85). These rates vary by a factor of ≈10,000 across the age groups. For comparison, the IFR for middle-aged adults is two orders of magnitude higher than the annualised risk of a fatal automobile accident and much higher than the risk of dying from seasonal influenza.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: In December 2020, a systematic review and meta-analysis estimated that population-weighted IFR was 0.5% to 1% in some countries (France, Netherlands, New Zealand, and Portugal), 1% to 2% in other countries (Australia, England, Lithuania, and Spain), and about 2.5% in Italy. This study reported that most of the differences reflected corresponding differences in the population's age structure and the age-specific pattern of infections.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Another metric in assessing death rate is the case fatality ratio (CFR), which is the ratio of deaths to diagnoses. This metric can be misleading because of the delay between symptom onset and death and because testing focuses on symptomatic individuals.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Based on Johns Hopkins University statistics, the global CFR is ( deaths for cases) as of . The number varies by region and has generally declined over time.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Several variants have been named by WHO and labelled as a variant of concern (VoC) or a variant of interest (VoI). They share the more infectious D614G mutation: Delta dominated and then eliminated earlier VoC from most jurisdictions. Omicron's immune escape ability may allow it to spread via breakthrough infections, which in turn may allow it to coexist with Delta, which more often infects the unvaccinated.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Symptoms of COVID-19 are variable, ranging from mild symptoms to severe illness. Common symptoms include headache, loss of smell and taste, nasal congestion and runny nose, cough, muscle pain, sore throat, fever, diarrhoea, and breathing difficulties. People with the same infection may have different symptoms, and their symptoms may change over time. Three common clusters of symptoms have been identified: one respiratory symptom cluster with cough, sputum, shortness of breath, and fever; a musculoskeletal symptom cluster with muscle and joint pain, headache, and fatigue; a cluster of digestive symptoms with abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhoea. In people without prior ear, nose, and throat disorders, loss of taste combined with loss of smell is associated with COVID-19 and is reported in as many as 88% of cases.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The disease is mainly transmitted via the respiratory route when people inhale droplets and small airborne particles (that form an aerosol) that infected people exhale as they breathe, talk, cough, sneeze, or sing. Infected people are more likely to transmit COVID-19 when they are physically close. However, infection can occur over longer distances, particularly indoors.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: SARS‑CoV‑2 belongs to the broad family of viruses known as coronaviruses. It is a positive-sense single-stranded RNA (+ssRNA) virus, with a single linear RNA segment. Coronaviruses infect humans, other mammals, including livestock and companion animals, and avian species.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Human coronaviruses are capable of causing illnesses ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS, fatality rate ≈34%). SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh known coronavirus to infect people, after 229E, NL63, OC43, HKU1, MERS-CoV, and the original SARS-CoV.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The standard methods of testing for presence of SARS-CoV-2 are nucleic acid tests, which detects the presence of viral RNA fragments. As these tests detect RNA but not infectious virus, its "ability to determine duration of infectivity of patients is limited." The test is typically done on respiratory samples obtained by a nasopharyngeal swab; however, a nasal swab or sputum sample may also be used. The WHO has published several testing protocols for the disease.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Preventive measures to reduce the chances of infection include getting vaccinated, staying at home, wearing a mask in public, avoiding crowded places, keeping distance from others, ventilating indoor spaces, managing potential exposure durations, washing hands with soap and water often and for at least twenty seconds, practising good respiratory hygiene, and avoiding touching the eyes, nose, or mouth with unwashed hands.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Those diagnosed with COVID-19 or who believe they may be infected are advised by the CDC to stay home except to get medical care, call ahead before visiting a healthcare provider, wear a face mask before entering the healthcare provider's office and when in any room or vehicle with another person, cover coughs and sneezes with a tissue, regularly wash hands with soap and water and avoid sharing personal household items.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: A COVID-19 vaccine is intended to provide acquired immunity against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2), the virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, an established body of knowledge existed about the structure and function of coronaviruses causing diseases like severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). This knowledge accelerated the development of various vaccine platforms during early 2020. The initial focus of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines was on preventing symptomatic, often severe illness. On 10 January 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequence data was shared through GISAID, and by 19 March, the global pharmaceutical industry announced a major commitment to address COVID-19. The COVID-19 vaccines are widely credited for their role in reducing the severity and death caused by COVID-19.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: As of late-December 2021, more than 4.49 billion people had received one or more doses (8+ billion in total) in over 197 countries. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was the most widely used.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 8 November 2022, Novavax's COVID-19 vaccine booster was authorized for use in adults in the United Kingdom. On 12 November 2022, the WHO released its Global Vaccine Market Report. The report indicated that "inequitable distribution is not unique to COVID-19 vaccines"; countries that are not economically strong struggle to obtain vaccines.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 14 November 2022, the first inhalable vaccine was introduced, developed by Chinese biopharmaceutical company CanSino Biologics, in the city of Shanghai, China.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: For the first two years of the pandemic, no specific and effective treatment or cure was available. In 2021, the European Medicines Agency's (EMA) Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) approved the oral antiviral protease inhibitor, Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir plus AIDS drug ritonavir), to treat adult patients. FDA later gave it an EUA.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Most cases of COVID-19 are mild. In these, supportive care includes medication such as paracetamol or NSAIDs to relieve symptoms (fever, body aches, cough), adequate intake of oral fluids and rest. Good personal hygiene and a healthy diet are also recommended.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Supportive care includes treatment to relieve symptoms, fluid therapy, oxygen support and prone positioning, and medications or devices to support other affected vital organs. More severe cases may need treatment in hospital. In those with low oxygen levels, use of the glucocorticoid dexamethasone is recommended, to reduce mortality. Noninvasive ventilation and, ultimately, admission to an intensive care unit for mechanical ventilation may be required to support breathing. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) has been used to address the issue of respiratory failure.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Existing drugs such as hydroxychloroquine, lopinavir/ritonavir, ivermectin and so-called early treatment are not recommended by US or European health authorities, as there is no good evidence they have any useful effect. The antiviral remdesivir is available in the US, Canada, Australia, and several other countries, with varying restrictions; however, it is not recommended for use with mechanical ventilation, and is discouraged altogether by the World Health Organization (WHO), due to limited evidence of its efficacy.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The severity of COVID-19 varies. The disease may take a mild course with few or no symptoms, resembling other common upper respiratory diseases such as the common cold. In 3–4% of cases (7.4% for those over age 65) symptoms are severe enough to cause hospitalization. Mild cases typically recover within two weeks, while those with severe or critical diseases may take three to six weeks to recover. Among those who have died, the time from symptom onset to death has ranged from two to eight weeks. Prolonged prothrombin time and elevated C-reactive protein levels on admission to the hospital are associated with severe course of COVID-19 and with a transfer to intensive care units (ICU).


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Between 5% and 50% of COVID-19 patients experience long COVID, a condition characterized by long-term consequences persisting after the typical convalescence period of the disease. The most commonly reported clinical presentations are fatigue and memory problems, as well as malaise, headaches, shortness of breath, loss of smell, muscle weakness, low fever and cognitive dysfunction.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Many countries attempted to slow or stop the spread of COVID-19 by recommending, mandating or prohibiting behaviour changes, while others relied primarily on providing information. Measures ranged from public advisories to stringent lockdowns. Outbreak control strategies are divided into elimination and mitigation. Experts differentiate between elimination strategies ( known as "zero-COVID") that aim to completely stop the spread of the virus within the community, and mitigation strategies (commonly known as "flattening the curve") that attempt to lessen the effects of the virus on society, but which still tolerate some level of transmission within the community. These initial strategies can be pursued sequentially or simultaneously during the acquired immunity phase through natural and vaccine-induced immunity.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: "Nature" reported in 2021 that 90 per cent of immunologists who responded to a survey "think that the coronavirus will become endemic".


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Containment is undertaken to stop an outbreak from spreading into the general population. Infected individuals are isolated while they are infectious. The people they have interacted with are contacted and isolated for long enough to ensure that they are either not infected or no longer contagious. Screening is the starting point for containment. Screening is done by checking for symptoms to identify infected individuals, who can then be isolated or offered treatment. The Zero-COVID strategy involves using public health measures such as contact tracing, mass testing, border quarantine, lockdowns and mitigation software to stop community transmission of COVID-19 as soon as it is detected, with the goal of getting the area back to zero detected infections and resuming normal economic and social activities. Successful containment or suppression reduces Rt to less than 1.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Should containment fail, efforts focus on mitigation: measures taken to slow the spread and limit its effects on the healthcare system and society.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Successful mitigation delays and decreases the epidemic peak, known as "flattening the epidemic curve". This decreases the risk of overwhelming health services and provides more time for developing vaccines and treatments. Individual behaviour changed in many jurisdictions. Many people worked from home instead of at their traditional workplaces.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Non-pharmaceutical interventions that may reduce spread include personal actions such as wearing face masks, self-quarantine, and hand hygiene; community measures aimed at reducing interpersonal contacts such as closing workplaces and schools and cancelling large gatherings; community engagement to encourage acceptance and participation in such interventions; as well as environmental measures such as surface cleaning.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: More drastic actions, such as quarantining entire populations and strict travel bans have been attempted in various jurisdictions. China and Australia's lockdowns have been the most strict. New Zealand implemented the most severe travel restrictions. South Korea introduced mass screening and localised quarantines, and issued alerts on the movements of infected individuals. Singapore provided financial support, quarantined, and imposed large fines for those who broke quarantine.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Contact tracing attempts to identify recent contacts of newly infected individuals, and to screen them for infection; the traditional approach is to request a list of contacts from infectees, and then telephone or visit the contacts. Contact tracing was widely used during the Western African Ebola virus epidemic in 2014.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Another approach is to collect location data from mobile devices to identify those who have come in significant contact with infectees, which prompted privacy concerns. On 10 April 2020, Google and Apple announced an initiative for privacy-preserving contact tracing. In Europe and in the US, Palantir Technologies initially provided COVID-19 tracking services.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: WHO described increasing capacity and adapting healthcare as a fundamental mitigation. The ECDC and WHO's European regional office issued guidelines for hospitals and primary healthcare services for shifting resources at multiple levels, including focusing laboratory services towards testing, cancelling elective procedures, separating and isolating patients, and increasing intensive care capabilities by training personnel and increasing ventilators and beds. The pandemic drove widespread adoption of telehealth.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Due to capacity supply chains limitations, some manufacturers began 3D printing material such as nasal swabs and ventilator parts. In one example, an Italian startup received legal threats due to alleged patent infringement after reverse-engineering and printing one hundred requested ventilator valves overnight. Individuals and groups of makers created and shared open source designs, and manufacturing devices using locally sourced materials, sewing, and 3D printing. Millions of face shields, protective gowns, and masks were made. Other ad hoc medical supplies included shoe covers, surgical caps, powered air-purifying respirators, and hand sanitizer. Novel devices were created such as ear savers, non-invasive ventilation helmets, and ventilator splitters.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: In July 2021, several experts expressed concern that achieving herd immunity may not be possible because Delta can transmit among vaccinated individuals. CDC published data showing that vaccinated people could transmit Delta, something officials believed was less likely with other variants. Consequently, WHO and CDC encouraged vaccinated people to continue with non-pharmaceutical interventions such as masking, social distancing, and quarantining if exposed.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The outbreak was discovered in Wuhan in November 2019. It is possible that human-to-human transmission was happening before the discovery. Based on a retrospective analysis starting from December 2019, the number of cases in Hubei gradually increased, reaching 60 by 20 December and at least 266 by 31 December.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: A pneumonia cluster was observed on 26 December and treated by Doctor Zhang Jixian. She informed the Wuhan Jianghan CDC on 27 December. Vision Medicals reported the discovery of a novel coronavirus to the China CDC (CCDC) on 28 December.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 30 December, a test report from CapitalBio Medlab addressed to Wuhan Central Hospital reported an erroneous positive result for SARS, causing doctors there to alert authorities. Eight of those doctors, including Li Wenliang (who was also punished on 3January), were later admonished by the police for spreading false rumours; and Ai Fen was reprimanded. That evening, Wuhan Municipal Health Commission (WMHC) issued a notice about "the treatment of pneumonia of unknown cause". The next day, WMHC made the announcement public, confirming 27 cases—enough to trigger an investigation.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 31 December, the WHO office in China was informed of cases of the pneumonia cases and immediately launched an investigation.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Official Chinese sources claimed that the early cases were mostly linked to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which also sold live animals. However, in May 2020, CCDC director George Gao indicated the market was not the origin (animal samples had tested negative).


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 11 January, WHO was notified by the Chinese National Health Commission that the outbreak was associated with exposures in the market, and that China had identified a new type of coronavirus, which it isolated on 7 January.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Initially, the number of cases doubled approximately every seven and a half days. In early and mid-January, the virus spread to other Chinese provinces, helped by the Chinese New Year migration. Wuhan was a transport hub and major rail interchange. On 10 January, the virus's genome was shared through GISAID. A retrospective study published in March found that 6,174 people had reported symptoms by 20 January. A 24 January report indicated human transmission, recommended personal protective equipment for health workers, and advocated testing, given the outbreak's "pandemic potential". On 31 January the first published modelling study warned of inevitable "independent self-sustaining outbreaks in major cities globally" and called for "large-scale public health interventions."


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 30 January, 7,818 infections had been confirmed, leading WHO to declare the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). On 11 March, WHO elevated it to a pandemic.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: By 31 January, Italy had its first confirmed infections, in two tourists from China. On 19 March, Italy overtook China as the country with the most reported deaths. By 26 March, the United States had overtaken China and Italy as the country with the highest number of confirmed infections. Genomic analysis indicated that the majority of New York's confirmed infections came from Europe, rather than directly from Asia. Testing of prior samples revealed a person who was infected in France on 27 December 2019 and a person in the United States who died from the disease on 6February.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: In October, WHO reported that one in ten people around the world may have been infected, or 780 million people, while only 35 million infections had been confirmed.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 9 November, Pfizer released trial results for a candidate vaccine, showing a 90 per cent effectiveness against infection. That day, Novavax entered an FDA Fast Track application for their vaccine.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 14 December, Public Health England reported that a variant had been discovered in the UK's southeast, predominantly in Kent. The variant, later named Alpha, showed changes to the spike protein that could be more infectious. As of 13 December, 1,108 infections had been confirmed.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 4 February 2020, US Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar waived liability for vaccine manufacturers.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 2 January, the Alpha variant, first discovered in the UK, had been identified in 33 countries. On 6 January, the Gamma variant was first identified in Japanese travellers returning from Brazil. On 29 January, it was reported that the Novavax vaccine was 49 per cent effective against the Beta variant in a clinical trial in South Africa. The CoronaVac vaccine was reported to be 50.4 per cent effective in a Brazil clinical trial.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 12 March, several countries stopped using the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine due to blood clotting problems, specifically cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST). On 20 March, the WHO and European Medicines Agency found no link to thrombus, leading several countries to resume the vaccine. In March WHO reported that an animal host was the most likely origin, without ruling out other possibilities. The Delta variant was first identified in India. In mid-April, the variant was first detected in the UK and two months later it had metastasized into a third wave there, forcing the government to delay reopening that was originally scheduled for June.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 10 November, Germany advised against the Moderna vaccine for people under 30. On 24 November, the Omicron variant was detected in South Africa; a few days later the World Health Organization declared it a VoC (variant of concern). The new variant is more infectious than the Delta variant.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 1 January, Europe passed 100 million cases amidst a surge in the Omicron variant. Later that month on 14 January, the World Health Organization recommended two new treatments, Baricitinib, and Sotrovimab (although conditionally). Later on 24 January, it was reported that about 57% of the world had been infected by COVID-19, per the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation Model.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 6 March, it was reported that the total worldwide death count had surpassed 6 million people since the start of the pandemic. Some time later, on 6 July, it was reported that Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 had spread worldwide.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 21 October the United States surpassed 99 million cases of COVID-19, the most cases of any country.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 30 October, it was reported that worldwide 424 deaths occurred due to the virus, the lowest since 385 deaths were reported on 12 March 2020. 17 November marked the three-year anniversary since health officials in China first detected COVID-19.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Ghebreyesus of the WHO stated on 14 September 2022, that "[The world has] never been in a better position to end the pandemic", citing the lowest number of weekly reported deaths since March 2020. He continued, "We are not there yet. But the end is in sight—we can see the finish line".


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 11 November, the World Health Organization reported that deaths since the month of February have dropped 90 percent. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this was "cause for optimism". On 3 December, the World Health Organization indicated that, "at least 90% of the world's population has some level of immunity to Sars-CoV-2".


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: National reactions ranged from strict lockdowns to public education campaigns. WHO recommended that curfews and lockdowns should be short-term measures to reorganise, regroup, rebalance resources, and protect the health care system.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: As of 26 March 2020, 1.7 billion people worldwide were under some form of lockdown. This increased to 3.9 billion people by the first week of April—more than half the world's population.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: As of the end of 2021, Asia's peak had come at the same time and at the same level as the world as a whole, in May 2021. However, cumulatively they had experienced only half the world average.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The vaccines distributed in China included the BIBP, WIBP, and CoronaVac. It was reported on 11 December 2021, that China had vaccinated 1.162 billion of its citizens, or 82.5% of the total population of the country against COVID-19. China's large scale adoption of zero-COVID had largely contained the first wave of infections of the disease. When the waves of infections due to the Omicron variant followed, China was almost alone in pursuing the strategy of zero-Covid to combat the spread of the virus in 2022. Lockdown continued to be employed in November to combat a new wave of cases; however, protests erupted in cities across China over the country's stringent measures, and in December that year, the country relaxed its zero-Covid policy. On 19 December, 2022 it was reported that the "exit from zero-COVID" could drive deaths to about 1 million in the country of China.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The first case in India was reported on 30 January 2020. India ordered a nationwide lockdown starting 24 March 2020, with a phased unlock beginning 1 June 2020. Six cities accounted for around half of reported cases—Mumbai, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Pune and Kolkata. Post-lockdown, the Government of India introduced a contact tracking app called Arogya Setu to help authorities manage contact tracing. Later this app was also used for a vaccination management program. India's vaccination program was considered to be the world's largest and the most successful with over 90% of citizens getting the first dose and another 65% getting the second dose. A second wave hit India in April 2021, straining healthcare services. On 21 October 2021, it was reported that the country had surpassed 1 billion vaccinations.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Iran reported its first confirmed cases on 19 February 2020, in Qom. Early measures included the cancellation of concerts and other cultural events, Friday prayers, and education shutdowns. Iran became a centre of the pandemic in February 2020. More than ten countries had traced their outbreaks to Iran by 28 February, indicating a more severe outbreak than the 388 reported cases. The Iranian Parliament closed, after 23 of its 290 members tested positive on 3March 2020. At least twelve sitting or former Iranian politicians and government officials had died by 17 March 2020. By August 2021, the pandemic's fifth wave peaked, with more than 400 deaths in 1 day.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: COVID-19 was confirmed in South Korea on 20 January 2020. Military bases were quarantined after tests showed three infected soldiers. South Korea introduced what was then considered the world's largest and best-organised screening programme, isolating infected people, and tracing and quarantining contacts. Screening methods included mandatory self-reporting by new international arrivals through mobile application, combined with drive-through testing, and increasing testing capability to 20,000 people/day. Despite some early criticisms, South Korea's programme was considered a success in controlling the outbreak without quarantining entire cities.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The global COVID-19 pandemic arrived in Europe with its first confirmed case in Bordeaux, France, on 24 January 2020, and subsequently spread widely across the continent. By 17 March 2020, every country in Europe had confirmed a case, and all have reported at least one death, with the exception of Vatican City. Italy was the first European nation to experience a major outbreak in early 2020, becoming the first country worldwide to introduce a national lockdown. By 13 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Europe the epicentre of the pandemic and it remained so until the WHO announced it had been overtaken by South America on 22 May. By 18 March 2020, more than 250 million people were in lockdown in Europe. Despite deployment of COVID-19 vaccines, Europe became the pandemic's epicentre once again in late 2021.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The Italian outbreak began on 31 January 2020, when two Chinese tourists tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in Rome. Cases began to rise sharply, which prompted the government to suspend flights to and from China and declare a state of emergency. On 22 February 2020, the Council of Ministers announced a new decree-law to contain the outbreak, including quarantining more than 50,000 people in northern Italy. On 4 March the Italian government ordered schools and universities closed as Italy reached a hundred deaths. Sport was suspended completely for at least one month. On 11 March Conte stopped nearly all commercial activity except supermarkets and pharmacies. On 19 March Italy overtook China as the country with the most COVID-19-related deaths. On 19 April the first wave ebbed, as 7-day deaths declined to 433. On 13 October, the Italian government again issued restrictive rules to contain the second wave. On 10 November Italy surpassed 1 million confirmed infections. On 23 November, it was reported that the second wave of the virus had led some hospitals to stop accepting patients.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The virus was first confirmed to have spread to Spain on 31 January 2020, when a German tourist tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in La Gomera, Canary Islands. Post-hoc genetic analysis has shown that at least 15 strains of the virus had been imported, and community transmission began by mid-February. On 29 March, it was announced that, beginning the following day, all non-essential workers were ordered to remain at home for the next 14 days. The number of cases increased again in July in a number of cities including Barcelona, Zaragoza and Madrid, which led to reimposition of some restrictions but no national lockdown. By September 2021, Spain was one of the countries with the highest per centage of its population vaccinated (76% fully vaccinated and 79% with the first dose), while also being one of the countries more in favour of vaccines against COVID-19 (nearly 94% of its population were already vaccinated or wanted to be). However, as of 21 January 2022, this figure had only increased to 80.6%. Nevertheless, Spain leads Europe for per-capita full-vaccination rates. Italy is ranked second at 75%.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Sweden differed from most other European countries in that it mostly remained open. Per the Swedish Constitution, the Public Health Agency of Sweden has autonomy that prevents political interference and the agency favoured remaining open. The Swedish strategy focused on longer-term measures, based on the assumption that after lockdown the virus would resume spreading, with the same result. By the end of June, Sweden no longer had excess mortality.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Devolution in the United Kingdom meant that each of its four countries developed its own response. England's restrictions were shorter-lived than the others. The UK government started enforcing social distancing and quarantine measures on 18 March 2020. On 16 March, Prime Minister Boris Johnson advised against non-essential travel and social contact, praising work from home and avoiding venues such as pubs, restaurants, and theatres. On 20 March, the government ordered all leisure establishments to close, and promised to prevent unemployment. On 23 March, Johnson banned gatherings and restricted non-essential travel and outdoor activity. Unlike previous measures, these restrictions were enforceable by police through fines and dispersal of gatherings. Most non-essential businesses were ordered to close. On 24 April 2020, it was reported that a promising vaccine trial had begun in England; the government pledged more than £50 million towards research. On 16 April 2020, it was reported that the UK would have first access to the Oxford vaccine, due to a prior contract; should the trial be successful, some 30 million doses would be available. On 2 December 2020, the UK became the first developed country to approve the Pfizer vaccine; 800,000 doses were immediately available for use. In August 2022 it was reported that viral infection cases had declined in the UK.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The virus arrived in the United States on 13 January 2020. Cases were reported in all North American countries after Saint Kitts and Nevis confirmed a case on 25 March, and in all North American territories after Bonaire confirmed a case on 16 April.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: In March 2020, as cases of community transmission were confirmed across Canada, all of its provinces and territories declared states of emergency. Provinces and territories have, to varying degrees, implemented school and daycare closures, prohibitions on gatherings, closures of non-essential businesses and restrictions on entry. Canada severely restricted its border access, barring travellers from all countries with some exceptions. Cases surged across Canada, notably in the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec and Ontario, with the formation of the Atlantic Bubble, a travel-restricted area of the country (formed of the four Atlantic provinces). Vaccine passports were adopted in all provinces and two of the territories. Per a report on 11 November 2022, Canada is facing a surge in influenza, while COVID-19 is expected to rise during winter.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached South America on 26 February 2020, when Brazil confirmed a case in São Paulo. By 3 April, all countries and territories in South America had recorded at least one case.<ref name="Stuff/Fairfax"></ref> On 13 May 2020, it was reported that Latin America and the Caribbean had reported over 400,000 cases of COVID-19 infection with 23,091 deaths. On 22 May 2020, citing the rapid increase of infections in Brazil, the World Health Organization WHO declared South America the epicentre of the pandemic. As of 16 July 2021, South America had recorded 34,359,631 confirmed cases and 1,047,229 deaths from COVID-19. Due to a shortage of testing and medical facilities, it is believed that the outbreak is far larger than the official numbers show.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The virus was confirmed to have spread to Brazil on 25 February 2020, when a man from São Paulo who had traveled to Italy tested positive for the virus. The disease had spread to every federative unit of Brazil by 21 March. On 19 June 2020, the country reported its one millionth case and nearly 49,000 reported deaths. One estimate of under-reporting was 22.62% of total reported COVID-19 mortality in 2020. As of , Brazil, with confirmed cases and deaths, has the third-highest number of confirmed cases and second-highest death toll from COVID-19 in the world, behind only those of the United States and of India.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have spread to Africa on 14 February 2020, with the first confirmed case announced in Egypt. The first confirmed case in sub-Saharan Africa was announced in Nigeria at the end of February 2020. Within three months, the virus had spread throughout the continent, as Lesotho, the last African sovereign state to have remained free of the virus, reported a case on 13 May 2020. By 26 May, it appeared that most African countries were experiencing community transmission, although testing capacity was limited. Most of the identified imported cases arrived from Europe and the United States rather than from China where the virus originated. Many preventive measures have been implemented by different countries in Africa including travel restrictions, flight cancellations, and event cancellations.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: In early June 2021, Africa faced a third wave of COVID infections with cases rising in 14 countries. By 4 July the continent recorded more than 251,000 new COVID cases, a 20% increase from the prior week and a 12% increase from the January peak. More than sixteen African countries, including Malawi and Senegal, recorded an uptick in new cases. The World Health Organization labelled it Africa's 'Worst Pandemic Week Ever'. In October 2022, it was reported by the World Health Organization that most countries on the African continent will miss the goal of 70 percent of their population being vaccinated by the end of 2022.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The COVID-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached Oceania on 25 January 2020, with the first confirmed case reported in Melbourne, Australia. It has since spread elsewhere in the region. Australia and New Zealand were praised for their handling of the pandemic in comparison to other Western nations, with New Zealand and each state in Australia wiping out all community transmission of the virus several times even after re-introduction into the community.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: As a result of the high transmissibility of the Delta variant, however, by August 2021, the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria had conceded defeat in their eradication efforts. In early October 2021, New Zealand also abandoned its elimination strategy. In November and December, following vaccination efforts, the remaining states of Australia, excluding Western Australia, voluntarily gave up COVID-zero to open up state and international borders. The open borders allowed the Omicron Variant of COVID-19 to enter quickly and cases subsequently exceeded 120,000 a day. By early March, with cases exceeding 1000 a day Western Australia conceded defeat in its eradication strategy and opened the borders after previously delaying the re-opening due to the omicron variant. Despite record cases, Australian jurisdictions slowly removed restrictions such as close contact isolation, mask wearing and density limits by April.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: On 9 September restrictions were significantly relaxed. The mask mandate on aircraft was scrapped nationwide. 9 September was also the last day cases were reported daily in Australia as the country transitioned to weekly reporting instead. On 14 September, COVID-19 disaster payment for people who had to isolate due to COVID-19 was extended so long as isolating was mandated by the government. By 22 September all states had ended mask mandates on public transport including in Victoria where the mandate had lasted some 800 days. On 30 September 2022, all Australian leaders declared the emergency response finished and announced the end of the requirement for people to isolate from 14 October if they have COVID-19 due in part to high levels of 'hybrid immunity' and very low case numbers.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: Due to its remoteness and sparse population, Antarctica was the last continent to have confirmed cases of COVID-19 and was one of the last regions of the world affected directly by the pandemic. The first cases were reported in December 2020, almost a year after the first cases of COVID-19 were detected in China. At least 36 people are confirmed to have been infected.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: In June 2020, the Secretary-General of the United Nations launched the UN Comprehensive Response to COVID-19. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNSC) was criticised for its slow response, especially regarding the UN's global ceasefire, which aimed to open up humanitarian access to conflict zones.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The WHO spearheaded initiatives such as the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund to raise money for the pandemic response, the UN COVID-19 Supply Chain Task Force, and the solidarity trial for investigating potential treatment options for the disease. The COVAX program, co-led by the WHO, GAVI, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), aimed to accelerate the development, manufacture, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, and to guarantee fair and equitable access across the world.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: In several countries, protests rose against restrictions such as lockdowns. A February 2021 study found that protests against restrictions were likely to directly increase spread.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The pandemic shook the world's economy, with especially severe economic damage in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. A consensus report by American intelligence agencies in April 2021 concluded, "Efforts to contain and manage the virus have reinforced nationalist trends globally, as some states turned inward to protect their citizens and sometimes cast blame on marginalized groups." COVID-19 inflamed partisanship and polarisation around the world as bitter arguments exploded over how to respond. International trade was disrupted amid the formation of no-entry enclaves.


title: COVID-19 pandemic

text: The pandemic led many countries and regions to impose quarantines, entry bans, or other restrictions, either for citizens, recent travellers to affected areas, or for all travellers. Travel collapsed worldwide, damaging the travel sector. The effectiveness of travel restrictions was questioned as the virus spread across the world. One study found that travel restrictions only modestly affected the initial spread, unless combined with other infection prevention and control measures. Researchers concluded that "travel restrictions are most useful in the early and late phase of an epidemic" and "restrictions of travel from Wuhan unfortunately came too late". The European Union rejected the idea of suspending the Schengen free travel zone.