B.C. marks 5 years since provinces 1st COVID-19 case [Video]

Tuesday marks the five-year anniversary of news that changed virtually everything about the way British Columbians lived, some things permanently.

Jan. 28, 2020, was the date that provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry and then-health minister Adrian Dix announced the first case of COVID-19 in the province.

Just over a month later, the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic.

“I want to really go back and applaud British Columbians because we protected each other, it was really, really important at first,” said Dr. Sarah Otto, a mathematical zoologist at UBC who became one of the province’s most prominent scientists modelling the COVID-19’s evolution.

“The virus was much more virulent, it was much more likely to cause hospitalizations and death, at first when nobody had immunity and it was the original strain. And people protected each other.”

The arrival of the first vaccines in December 2020, nearly a year after the first case was …