On 11 March 2020, the WHO declared we were in a pandemic. Covid-19 was tearing through the world at an alarming rate and little was actually known about it, let alone how to treat it. The majority of us had paid little attention to the development of a new strain of coronavirus in China earlier on in the year; however, on 4 January 2020 Justin Stebbing, Professor of Cancer Medicine and Oncology at Imperial College London, wrote an email to Niall Ferguson mentioning stories he had heard of strange cases of pneumonia emanating from Wuhan, China. He then began writing daily notes.

In Witness to Covid: 2020, Professor Justin Stebbing tracks the development of Covid-19 over the course of this unforgettable year, navigating his way through the infodemic of misinformation regarding the virus. From the early onset of this novel coronavirus when he tracked its spread and tried to learn more about it, the impact on individual countries and the search for treatment, through to the development of vaccines, their clinical trials and eventual rollout, and the emergence of newly developing variants. This book takes a unique look at a truly unique year.