On 12 January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that a novel coronavirus was the cause of a respiratory illness in a cluster of people in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, which was reported to the WHO on 31 December 2019.
[11] As of 27 March, 42 people had tested positive for COVID-19 in Gibraltar, including two workers from the Elderly Residential Services at Mount Alvernia.
[12] At the end of March, a Florence Nightingale Field Hospital with 192 beds was completed on the Europa Point Sports Complex.
[14] On 9 May, the border with Spain was opened to Spanish residents who held non-essential employment contracts in Gibraltar to allow them to return to work.
[citation needed] A contact app called "BEAT Covid Gibraltar" was released on 18 June available through both Apple and Google with the objective to reduce transmission of COVID-19 by informing users that they had been close to someone who had tested positive.
Cases doubled, passing 2,000 in December as a curfew was announced between 10pm and 6am as well as the closure of all non essential shops, including hairdressers and beauty salons until 10 January.
[36] Also on 2 February, the Gibraltar Health Authority announced a hotline for students studying abroad, notably in the UK, to register for vaccination.
[37] The public health goal was to avoid those students transmitting the virus to older, more susceptible, relatives on return.
[37] On 18 March, UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock announced that Gibraltar had completed vaccinating its entire adult population against COVID-19.
In response, Gibraltar revoked most measures put in place during the pandemic, most notably ending mandatory mask-wearing in outdoor spaces.
A community outbreak in October that lead to an increase from 54 to 198 cases in the month prompted the government to express warnings about public gatherings, but hospitalisation remains low.
Vaccination of 12–15 year olds also started in late October, ahead of the planned mid-term break rollout due to the early arrival of Pfizer jabs.