TORONTO, Ontario (CTV News) — Defining the start of the COVID-19 pandemic varies greatly from person to person, officially referred to as a pandemic by the WHO on March 11, it was in the days and weeks that followed, with cancelled trips and postponed surgeries, that the severity of the disease sank in for Canadians. In early 2020, for most Canadians who had even heard of COVID-19, it was a distant problem that hadn’t yet crossed our borders. That changed on Jan. 25, when a man returning to Toronto from Wuhan, China was deemed a presumptive case of COVID-19. Two days later, he was confirmed as Canada’s first known case of novel coronavirus infection.