There is always a 1st case of a viral outbreak, there is always the 1st person to die or have their life changed by a virus. There is always a time when a virus is unknown to science because it hasn’t been seen before.
Most of the time, these first cases happen in areas of the world away from places where they can document. No one will ever know who was the 1st human to die from the Aids virus but now it is known across the world and cures/treatments are being worked on around the clock but that 1st victim is still unknown.
With the mermaid virus which would forever change the world, no one knew who first came down with the virus. Some say it started in with locals of a small island in the Philippians, others it came from a lab in Europe or China before escaping, others say it started off the coast of East Africa or in the Caribbean.
What is known is that once the 1st case was documented it appeared around the world within days, causing lock downs and millions to get as far away from the ocean as possible while transforming millions of others into something else.
In the early days, when the virus first appeared none knew if anyone was immune, none knew that a simple touch could spread the virus. None knew how rapid or how slowly the change took place. None knew how wide of a possibilities of changes there where. None knew that both gender and age could be changed with this virus or the wide selection of possible outcomes for the tails there where.
None knew how unprepared the world was.
While scientists may never know who was the 1st human to be transformed by the mermaid virus, they do know who was the 1st documented human to be transformed.