March 11, 2020. That’s a day for the history books. On that date, the WorldHealth Organization (WHO) gave the spread of the coronavirus a new title— pandemic. So, we have now been living in a pandemic for two years.
        A lot changed after March 11, 2020. People began wearing masks and went intolockdown. They went to work — and school — online. We all worked together (bystaying apart) to stay safe. Now in its third year, the COVID-19 pandemic is stillaffecting millions of people. Yet life is slowly returning to normal.
        By March 2022, about 500 million people have tested positive for COVID-19.More than 6 million people have died. Those include more than 1 million in Asia andmore than 900,000 in the United States. Millions more got sick from the virus, manyof whom are still dealing with the long-term effects of the illness.
        The virus itself has changed over the past two years as well. Ithas mutated several times into different variants. Those include delta and omicron,both of which are very contagious. That caused new waves of COVID-19 — andresulted in the spread of the disease to more places. By now, it has reached nearlyevery corner of the globe. Even the isolated islands in Tonga, Vanuatu, and Micronesiahave had some cases.
       The COVID-19 vaccine helped to protect a lot of people. It kept patients fromgetting very sick (or dying). A 90-year-old woman in Britain got the first approvedshot on December 8, 2020. By now, most Americans have gotten the vaccine.However, poorer areas of the world do not have as much access. More than 1 billionpeople in Africa (more than 90% of the population) still have not had any shots of thevaccine.
       The numbers of COVID-19 cases have dropped in the United States. As a result,people do not have to wear masks anymore in most areas of the country. This month,thousands of schools removed their mask mandate.However, travelers on planes,trains, or public buses will still have to wear masks until at least April 18.
        However, the pandemic is far from over. More than 1 million people worldwideare testing positive for COVID-19 each day. And some areas are seeing a recordnumber of cases. Those include the city of Hong Kong, China, which is currentlyfacing its worst outbreak ever. And, of course, we will feel the effects of the pandemicfor many years. For example, recent studies show that closed schools caused millionsof young students to fall behind in their reading skills.
        What will the third year of the pandemic look like? No one can be sure. Therewill likely be new treatments for COVID-19 (including pills). Some experts believethat the pandemic will officially end in 2022. But that doesn’t mean the virus will goaway. Instead, it will likely become endemic in most areas. That means the diseasewill continue to spread at different times. And we will learn to live with this virus aspart of our world.
【題組】41. According the article, why did the COVID-19 pandemic begin on March 11, 2020?
(A) That was when the pandemic first spread to other countries.
(B) That was when the WHO first called it a pandemic.
(C) That was when the first person got sick with COVID-19
(D) That was when the first person died from COVID-19.