A sombre anniversary: First London, Ont. COVID-19 patient

January 24, 2020. The images from half a world away show a mysterious sickness sending thousands of people to hospital.

Not much was known then, and while we didn’t find out until a week later, it was on that day that the first case in Middlesex-London went to hospital and tested positive for what we now know as COVID-19.

“It’s arrival was striking, it was concerning, it was, in so many ways, still an unknown,” says Middlesex-London Health Unit Acting Medical Officer of Health Dr. Alex Summers.

At the time, health officials had been briefed on the situation in Wuhan, China, but were unsure if it would evolve into the global pandemic it became.

“We, at the time certainly, knew that a pandemic was always a possibility,” says Summers. “But it was still, at the time, was not clear whether or not it we would see sustained COVID-19 transmission in communities beyond Wuhan.”

It would take a couple of months before cases began to spread locally and the health care sector -- under immense pressure -- was forced to reinvent it self several times over the coming months. And the pandemic continues to take a toll.

“A lot of emotions come to play when I think about the last two years. I would say in the health-care sector, this has been a, quite a two years. We’ve learned a lot,” says Carol Young-Ritchie, executive vice-president and chief nursing executive at the London Health Sciences Centre.

And in the days following that Western University student presenting herself to hospital two years ago, to now, the world has changed.

According to Mayor Ed Holder it is a time that will shape our future, “I can only imagine for all of us, this has been the most unique two years that any of us could have imagined."

Summers adds, “I think it’s going to take a number of years for any of us to fully reflect and fully unpack what this experience has been.”

And while local leaders reflected on the anniversary of the start of our pandemic, all cautioned there is still a journey ahead -- albeit, hopefully, a shorter one -- until we see the end