Here’s a photo I snapped while buying groceries on Sunday, March 8th. Back then, COVID-19 numbers were still only in the double digits in North America. I would double-check the accuracy of the case numbers reported in the tabloid pictured above, but it’s in line with the number of cases in Toronto around that time (10 cases on March 2nd).
As of this writing, there are more than 1.5 million cases in the United States (4.5+ million worldwide), with just under 90,000 deaths in the U.S. (313,000 worldwide).