A year ago today, an anxious student rang the NHS because he was worried about his mum's cough and fever. The 23-year-old's parents had flown over from China's Hubei province to visit him in York, where he was studying, when she fell ill.
Ambulance staff wearing hazmat suits escorted the patient from the Staycity hotel, where she was staying, to hospital in Newcastle.
Tests would confirm what medics most feared, and on January 31, the government sombrely announced the first known Covid-19 cases in the UK, as two family members were found to have the virus.
Twelve months later the UK has become the fifth country in the world to pass 100,000 Covid deaths - with the government accused of a string of devastating failures.