The year began with all of us hailing and ushering in the decade with plenty of expectation and promise. By then, unbeknownst to most of us, in an unheard corner of China — Wuhan — a virus had begun to wreak havoc on its population as a fast-spreading threat loomed large. So aggressive was its impact that it managed to even tag the year 2019 to its name, as last year rolled into the next.

By March 2020, most of the world had sat up to take notice – afraid, shaken and unprepared – it watched in disbelief, often like mute spectators, as the rampaging virus crossed borders and boundaries, striking in its path the rich and the poor, the known celebrity and faceless migrant labourer.