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January 25 HKUMed professors (Gabriel Leung, Keiji Fukuda and Yuen Kwok-Yung) appointed as members of the HKSAR Government’s expert advisory group January 9 New virus identified as likely cause of mystery illness in Mainland China January 13 Thailand reported the first international case January 30 The HKSAR Government announces the first limits on the flow of people and traffic between the Mainland and Hong Kong January 25 Hong Kong schools are closed due to COVID-19. The closure lasts four months and DSE (secondary school) exams are delayed and oral exams cancelled. Schools would close again in summer January 22 Hong Kong confirms its first case January 23 Wuhan becomes the first city in the world to be locked down due to COVID-19 January 20 A World Health Organization (WHO) delegation conducts a field visit to Wuhan to learn about the response to the novel coronavirus January 21 The US government announces the first confirmed case of COVID-19. By the end of October, the US had the most cases of any country January 21 The HKUMed WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control (HKUMed WHO Collaborating Centre) releases a real-time nowcast on the likely extent of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, and the domestic and international spread THE UNFOLDING PANDEMIC The COVID-19 pandemic that began to spread in January 2020 is far from over. Over these pages, we attempt to mark some of the key local, national and global events that have occurred to date, and our research contributions towards controlling the pandemic. For the latest updates, please refer to http://www.med.hku.hk/en/covid-19 . We sincerely hope there will soon be an end to this timeline. 36