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COVID-19 is a highly contagious disease caused by the so-called coronavirus. The causative agent of the disease, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, was firstly discovered in the late 2019 in the city of Wuhan, in the Chinese province of Hubei. From there, it spread rapidly around the world causing a worldwide pandemic of COVID-19 disease. In Croatia, the first case of infection was confirmed on February 25, 2020. This paper describes the movement of the number of infected, the number of deaths and the number of active and cured persons from COVID-19 disease in the Republic of Croatia in the period from 25 February 2020 to 25 February 2021. The paper also presents the movement of the values of variables associated with COVID-19 disease at the county level in the Republic of Croatia. This paper provides the basis for future statistical modelling related to the movement of COVID-19 variables, which should result in solutions to curb this pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In December 2019, the first cases of a new contagious disease were diagnosed in the city of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in China. Within a short period of time the outbreak developed exponentially into a pandemic that infected millions of people, with a global death toll of more than 500,000 during its first 6 months. Eventually, the novel disease was named coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and the new virus was identified as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Similar to all known pandemics throughout history, COVID-19 has been accompanied by a large degree of fear, anxiety, uncertainty, and economic disaster worldwide. Despite multiple publications and increasing knowledge regarding the biological secrets of SARS-CoV-2, as of the writing of this paper, there is neither an approved vaccine nor medication to prevent infection or cure for this highly infectious disease. Past pandemics were caused by a wide range of microbes, primarily viruses, but also bacteria. Characteristically, a significant proportion of them originated in different animal species (zoonoses). Since an understanding of the microbial cause of these diseases was unveiled relatively late in human history, past pandemics were often attributed to strange causes including punishment from God, demonic activity, or volatile unspecified substances. Although a high case fatality ratio was common to all pandemic diseases, some striking clinical characteristics of each disease allowed contemporaneous people to clinically diagnose the infection despite null microbiological information. In comparison to past pandemics, SARS-CoV-2 has tricky and complex mechanisms that have facilitated its rapid and catastrophic spread worldwide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]