China marks muted 5th anniversary of first Covid death
The HinduThe fifth anniversary of the first known death from Covid-19 passed seemingly unnoticed in China on Saturday, with no official remembrances in a country where the pandemic is a taboo subject. There was also little online commemoration in Hong Kong, where Beijing largely snuffed out opposition voices when it imposed a sweeping national security law on the semi-autonomous city in 2020. 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. According to the WHO, China has officially reported nearly 100 million Covid cases and 122,000 deaths to date, although the true number will likely never be known.