Whiste-blower Li Wenliang had warned of Coronavirus, was reprimanded by police: A tale to tell
Doctor Li Wenliang who had warned other medics about coronavirus, died of the virus on Thursday. On December 30, Li Wenliang texted his medical school batchmates that seven patients from a local seafood market had been diagnosed with a SARS-like illness and quarantined in his hospital.
Referring to the tests he had seen, the disease was due to coronavirus-- a large family of viruses that includes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
Li was working in Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the epicenter of the deadly coronavirus outbreak, told his friends to warn their loved ones privately. But within hours screenshots of his messages had gone viral -- without his name being blurred. "When I saw them circulating online, I realized that it was out of my control and I would probably be punished," Li said.
And he was right.
Soon after he posted the message he was reprimanded by the Wuhan Police for rumor-mongering. From an intensive care bed in hospital, Li told CNN he was confirmed on Saturday to have contracted the virus.
His diagnosis has sparked outrage across China, where a backlash is growing against state censorship around the illness and an initial delay in warning the public about the deadly virus.
Li was reprimanded by Police for warning about coronavirus
After Li messaged his friends, an emergency notice was issued by the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, informing the city's medical institutions that a series of patients from the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market had an "unknown pneumonia." The notice came with a warning: "Any organizations or individuals are not allowed to release treatment information to the public without authorization."
On the very next day, Li was summoned by officials at his hospital to explain how he knew about the cases. Later that day, the Wuhan authorities announced the outbreak and alerted the World Health Organization.
On January 3, Li was called to a local police station and reprimanded for "spreading rumors online" and "severely disrupting social order" over the message he sent in the chat group.
On January 10, while treating a patient with the Wuhan coronavirus, Li started coughing and developed a fever the next day. He was hospitalized on January 12. In the following days, Li's condition deteriorated so badly that he was admitted to the intensive care unit, and given oxygen support. He tested positive for coronavirus on February 1. Since then he was quarantined in an isolated ward.
China's Supreme Court on January 28 criticized the Wuhan police for punishing the "rumormongers." "It might have been a fortunate thing for containing the new coronavirus, if the public had listened to this 'rumor' at the time, and adopted measures such as wearing masks, strict disinfection and avoiding going to the wildlife market," the Supreme Court said.
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