It's been 100 days since Australia's first COVID-19 case - here's how our lives changed completely

It's been 100 days ((on Tue May 5)) since the very first case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Australia - a Chinese national who flew into Melbourne. As health and government officials gained more understanding of the new disease, what followed was a series of unprecedented travel bans, lockdowns and restrictions that's changed life as we know it.

Illustration by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Source: AAP

As 2019 slipped into 2020, on New Year's Eve, Chinese authorities alerted the World Health Organisation ((WHO)) to a cluster of unusual pneumonia cases in Wuhan, a city of 11 million people.

 A new type of coronavirus was identified and later named COVID-19.

As it began to spread outside China, Australia confirmed its first case of the virus on January 25, that of a Chinese man who arrived in Melbourne.

 Victoria's Health Minister Jenny Mikakos told people not to panic.

On the same day, three other people tested positive in New South Wales after flying in from Wuhan.

 They were taken to hospital and placed in isolation.

 Meanwhile, back at the centre of the virus in Wuhan, in full-scale lockdown, hundreds of Australians, including children, pleaded for help to return home.

 The government formed a plan to repatriate them from China to Christmas Island, where they would spend 14 days in quarantine.