At the end of each year, professional press bodies traditionally give awards to people and particular events of the past 12 months. News.mn has been naming “Person of the Year” since 2004.

This year, we have decided to name ‘Covid-19’ as Person of the Year of 2020; it has effected all our lives! To date, it has infected 82 millionpeople worldwide and killed 1.7 million. In March, the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 as a pandemic.

When China first reported cases of coronavirus to the WHO on December 31, 2019, it was described as a mysterious new strain of pneumonia. It didn’t even have a name. Within two weeks, Chinese scientists had identified the virus’ genome sequence – the genetic code that makes up the virus. Within three weeks, the first test kits had been created and then shared by the WHO. And just over 11 months since the virus was reported to the WHO, the first people were vaccinated, making the shots the fastest vaccines ever developed.

Why has it named as Covid-19?

The World Health Organization has decided to name the disease caused by the novel coronavirus “COVID-19” and refers to the virus that causes it as the “COVID-19 virus.” CO for corona, VI for virus, D for disease, and 19 for the year the outbreak was first recognized, late in 2019.

Covid-19 in Mongolia

Mongolia reported its first Covid-19 death over the weekend. Before the death of a 76-year old woman from Covid-19 on Saturday, the country of 3.4 million had reported no fatalities from the disease since its first Covid-19 case was discovered in March. The woman was said to have other prior health complications, including high blood pressure, diabetes and hepatitis C.

Mongolia has 1195 confirmed cases of coronavirus; 394 of them are locally transmitted.