In December 2019, SARS-CoV-2 was first isolated in China following reports of hospitalized patients experiencing atypical pneumonia. Soon after, molecular evolutionary experiments revealed that SARS-CoV-2 likely spilled over to humans from a bat reservoir; however, its original spillover mechanism remains debatable. Despite the lack of a definitive timeline on when SARS-CoV-2 initially emerged, previous evolutionary studies indicate that the virus likely circulated in China for several months before the first outbreak was recorded in Wuhan, China. Soon after, an increasing number of cases were reported in several European and North American countries by mid-January 2020. Italy was the first European country to report sustained SARS-CoV-2 community transmission. This country subsequently became the epicenter of the epidemic in Europe, with Lombardy being the most affected.