Moscow, Exactly one year ago the first patient contracted what became known as the novel coronavirus in China’s Wuhan, triggering a global pandemic that has infected over 62 million people and killed more than 1.4 million as of Tuesday.Despite local public health authorities in Wuhan first acknowledging 27 patients were sicken of an unknown viral pneumonia on December 31 last year, a study tracing the first group of COVID-19 patients released on Jan 24 in the Lancet, a renowned medical journal, revealed that the earliest infection in Wuhan appeared on December 1.Wu Wenjuan, a doctor who treated this patient at the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital and was among the group of doctors who produced the study in the Lancet, identified this patient as a male in his 70s, the 21st Century Business Herald, a Chinese business publication, reported in February.According to Wu, the first known COVID-19 patient in Wuhan was struggling with cerebral infarction and dementia. He first visited another hospital in Wuhan and was only transferred to the Wuhan Jinyintan Hospital on December 29. Doctors who treated him were able to establish the date of his infection based on testimonies from his relatives, Wu added.Because of his preexisting conditions, the patient mostly stayed home after his initial infection and never visited the Huanan Seafood Market, where a cluster of COVID-19 patients were identified later, Wu said.When reached by phone this week, Wu declined to share more details about the first COVID-19 patient in Wuhan or if he survived the infection, citing hospital policies.The discovery of the first COVID-19 patient by Wu’s team showed that the new coronavirus likely did not jump from wild animals to humans at the Huanan Seafood Market, which was initially believed to be where the virus emerged because wild animals were being traded there.