First-ever Covid death: 5 years ago, a man in China died of a virus that changed how we live

It was on January 11, 2020 when health officials in the central Chinese city of Wuhan announced that a 61-year-old man had died from complications of pneumonia caused by a previously unknown virus — It was Covid-19.

The disclosure came after authorities had reported dozens of infections over several weeks by the pathogen later named SARS-CoV-2 and understood as the cause of Covid-19.

It went on to spark a global pandemic that has so far killed over seven million people and profoundly altered ways of life around the world, including in China.

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On Saturday, the fifth anniversary of the first known death from Covid-19 in China, passed seemingly unnoticed, with no official remembrances in a country where the pandemic is a taboo subject.

Little is known about the identity of the first Covid casualty except that he was a frequent visitor to a Wuhan seafood market where the virus is thought to have circulated during the initial outbreak.

Within days of his death, other countries reported their first cases of the disease, showing that official efforts to contain its spread had failed.

On the popular social media platform Weibo, users who gravitated to the former account of Li Wenliang -- the whistleblower doctor who was investigated by police for spreading early information about the virus -- did not directly reference the anniversary.

"Dr Li, another year has gone by," read one comment on Saturday. "How quickly time passes."

Unlike other countries, China has not built major memorials to those who lost their lives during the pandemic.

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