Coronavirus death toll nears 1 million – how did we get here?

By Adam Vaughan

A burial taking place in a cemetery in Manaus, Brazil

Michael Dantas/AFP Via Getty Images

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

As this magazine went to press, we are nearing a global death toll of a million people after the virus spread out from Wuhan and exploded around the world. The true count is far higher and won’t be established for …