This article outlines the history of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom (granular timelines can be found here). Though later reporting indicated that there may have been some cases dating from late 2019, COVID-19 was confirmed to be spreading in the UK by the end of January 2020. The country was initially relatively slow implementing restrictions but a legally enforced stay-at-home order had been introduced by late March. Restrictions were steadily eased across the UK in late spring and early summer that year.
By the Autumn, COVID-19 cases were again rising. This led to the creation of new regulations along with the introduction of the concept of a local lockdown, a variance in restrictions in a more specific geographic location than the four nations of the UK. Lockdowns took place in Wales, England and Northern Ireland later that season. In part due to a new variant of the virus, cases were still increasing and the NHS had come under severe strain by late December. This led to a tightening of restrictions across the UK.
The first COVID-19 vaccine was approved and began its rollout in the UK in early December. 15 million vaccine doses had been given to predominantly those most vulnerable to the virus by mid-February. 6 months later more than 75% of adults in the UK were fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Restrictions began to ease from late February onwards and almost all had ended in Great Britain by August. The SARS-CoV-2 Delta variant drove an increase in daily case numbers that remained high through autumn, although the vaccination programme led to a lower mortality rate. The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant arrived in early December, driving a further increase in cases.
Winter 2019–20: Arrival and embedment
September 2019 – January 2020: Suspected cases
In November 2019, Connor Reed, of Llandudno, a 25-year-old student working at a school in Wuhan caught the virus; on 4 / 5 December he was taken to the local hospital. After his recovery, he acknowledged the Chinese authorities for their openness in terms of information. A year later, after returning to Wales, he was found dead at his flat in Bangor University, as the result of an accident.
In March 2020, it was reported that a 50-year-old man from East Sussex fell ill, also with COVID-19 symptoms, on 20 January after he returned from Ischgl in Austria, which is under investigation because it failed to report early cases on February. Also, the three other members of his family and two friends from Denmark and one from Minnesota, US had same symptoms.
In May 2020, the BBC reported that several members of a choir in Yorkshire had suffered COVID-19-like symptoms shortly after the partner of one of the choir members returned from a business trip to Wuhan, China, on 17 or 18 December.
In June 2020, the BBC reported that it was found that COVID-19 in UK had at least 1356 origins, mostly from Italy (late February), Spain (early-to-mid-March), and France (mid-to-late-March). Later that same month, Xinhua, the official Chinese state-owned news agency, reported that 53-year-old woman who fell ill on 6 January, two days after returning from a family trip to the Obergurgl resort in Austria, tested positive for antibodies for SARS-CoV-2 in late May. The agency reported that no other member of her family fell ill.
In August 2020, the Kent coroner certified that the death of Peter Attwood (aged 84) on 30 January had been related to COVID-19 ('COVID-19 infection and bronchopneumonia', according to an email on 3 September, after COVID-19 was detected in his lung tissue), making him the first confirmed UK victim of the disease. He first showed symptoms on 15 December 2019. Attwood had not travelled abroad.
In November 2020, it was reported that a 66-year-old had experienced symptoms shortly after returning from a holiday in Italy in September 2019, and his 44-year-old daughter had experienced similar symptoms. Scientists had previously speculated about COVID-19 in Italy as early as September 2019.