First Briton to get Covid-19 dead under mysterious circumstances at dorm room a year after getting infected
The first known British citizen to have got infected with Coronavirus in a school in China was found dead at the age of 26 under mysterious circumstances at a university in Wales just two weeks ago. Connor Reed caught the virus in November while working at a school in Wuhan. He tested positive for the virus in December after struggling to breathe. At the time, he feared for his life. A year on, he seemed to have made a full recovery and was living life to the fullest at Bangor University studying Chinese and linguistics. Until two weeks ago on October 25, 2020, when his roommates found him collapsed on his bedroom floor shortly after 10 pm but his cause of death so far remains unknown.
His mother Hayley took to Facebook to share the news. "It brings me great sadness to announce our beautiful son Connor Reed has passed away in a tragic accident at Bangor University at the weekend. He will be so greatly missed by his brothers, family and friends. He had such a wonderful smile, enthusiasm and love for life," she had said. "We are blessed to of had you in our lives if only for a very short time. Rest in peace our darling."
Reed's family including his siblings Morgan, 17, and Oliver, eight, who now live in Australia told The Sun her son's death appeared to be a "tragic accident". Hayley reminisced about her son: "To say Connor had a sense of adventure was an understatement". "When he told us he was going to learn Chinese we didn't really believe him but he knuckled down and went on his own to China and in a few years was speaking fluent mandarin," she said. "We are both broken-hearted that his adventures came to an end [in] Bangor. We will never know where his ambition and drive would have taken him," she said.
She said he "endured a lot of hardship" in China after catching the virus, with a 16-week lockdown in Wuhan, another two weeks in Australia and three weeks in quarantine in the UK.
But what's worse for the family now after receiving the shocking news of Reed's death, is that they cannot go to the funeral as a result of travel restrictions in the UK. Connor's parents Rod and Hayley Reed described the pain of having to watch his funeral on a screen from the other side of the world. "You'd think we would have felt disconnected from Connor because we were so far away, but I didn't feel that way at all," his father told the DailyMail. "It was just nice that we were at least able to see him. Afterwards, we had a glass of wine and talked about all the incredible things he did in his life."
Rod also opened up about the investigations into the death. "At first, the police thought he had fallen off a chair in his bedroom (hitting his head on the floor), but the university says not. A post-mortem examination has been done because we've got a report from the coroner saying it was inconclusive. The only thing they said of interest was that they were doing more tests, but it could be up to 12 weeks before we know anything," he said. What remains sad is the very possible fact that the Reeds might never find out what really happened. "I did think it might be Covid-related, but then I thought there'd be a tell-tale sign, a cough or something. We may never know the truth, but we have to try to find it. I don't think it was Covid-related, but you never know."
At the same time, he very explicitly pointed out that it is not possible for Reed to have attempted to take his own life. "I can see why people might think it was suicide, but I can't see it. He said the people in his dormitory were nice and he had made friends. He was happy. I have never known him to take drugs, and surely that's the first thing they would look for, but they haven't told us they've found any," he said.