Tuesday marks the fifth anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The World Health Organization made it official on March 11, 2020. Five years ago, there were already 118,000 cases in 114 countries and COVID-19 had killed more than 4,000 people. Less than a week later, the shutdowns began.

Rodney Davis, from Bridgeport, got a hero's welcome in 2022 when he returned to Saint Vincent's Medical Center. He was the hospital's first COVID patient. Davis was in a coma for two months. He survived and thanked the heroes that saved him.

"I'm a miracle. They are my angels, and they saved my life, and I'm here today to share the story with everyone," said Davis.

Chris Tillett from Wilton was Connecticut's first COVID patient. He was in a medically induced coma for 10 days at Danbury Hospital. A year later, he thanked the staff for saving his life. "You guys cared for my emotional side too, like having music being played in my room and then having photos of my sons on the wall," said Tillett.

According to the World Health Organization and Johns Hopkins, the United States has had 103 million total confirmed cases and counting since the start of the pandemic. That includes 976,000 cases in Connecticut.

COVID has killed more than 1.2 million people in the U.S., and more than 12,000 people in Connecticut.

In late December 2019, hospitals in Wuhan, China, were filling up with cases of a mysterious pneumonia. By January 2020, other countries began reporting cases as the body count started to mount and Wuhan was locked down.

COVID continues to kill more people than influenza, although the flu has hospitalized more people in the U.S. this winter.

Here in Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont says our state has come a long way.

"I think we're better prepared in the sense that we keep a look at our stockpile. We're working hard with our departments of public health. We have a very close relationship with the hospitals. So all that was re-established and put in place five years ago," said Lamont.

Experts say we are better prepared, but there are still COVID cases and there will always be new variants. One thing is certain - the world will experience other pandemics, possibly within our lifetime.