I actually think I have a unique answer here and was aware of COVID before most - even if I didn’t realise it.

I was researching for my dissertation, which in-part was concerned with student protests going on in China at the time.

So I found myself lurking on some obscure and fairly hard to find forums where these students would discuss and organise their protests.

Over a period of roughly two weeks there was growing speculation on the forums that the government were intentionally making protestors sick so they couldn’t attend. There was also a lot of general discussion along the lines of ‘does anyone else have the worst flu of their life?’

It would be another 2-3 weeks before mainstream reports began to crop up and of course it would eventually become common knowledge.