The death of Li Wenliang, the first doctor to warn of the danger of the corona virus, sparked widespread grief and anger in China

Photo:doctor li wenliang

Friday, July 19, 2020

UPDATimes - The death of Li Wenliang, the first Chinese doctor to warn of the danger of the corona virus, in addition to raising condolences, also sparked widespread anger in the country.

Li Wenliang contracted the virus while working at the Wuhan City Central Hospital.

He died on Friday (07/02) at 02:58 local time (1:58 WIB) at the age of 34 years. He left a child and wife who were pregnant.

At the end of December, Li sent a warning to fellow health workers to be careful about treating patients affected by the corona virus, but the police told him to stop "making false comments".

The news of Li's death was greeted with deep sorrow, as seen on the Chinese social media site, Weibo.
But quickly, this sorrow changes with anger.

Before Li died, accusations emerged that the government was covering up the scale of the corona virus outbreak. The government is accused of deliberately keeping cases of the corona virus.

Some say they have never seen a scale of anger this big in recent times.

Popular hashtags include "the Wuhan government is obliged to apologize to Dr Li Wenliang" and "We request freedom of speech".

The two hashtags have been censored and searches by the BBC on Friday showed hundreds of thousands of comments with the hashtags have been removed. Only a few are still preserved.

Stephen McDonell, a BBC reporter in Beijing, said the corona virus and Li's death had become a "political disaster" for the Chinese government.

Everyone was very saddened by the departure of Doctor Li Wenliang

This incident, said the BBC's correspondent, revealed the fundamental weaknesses of Xi Jinping's government control system and command system.

If the response to a dangerous health emergency warning is to mobilize the police and ask the person issuing a warning to shut up, then there is clearly something wrong in the structure of government work, says the BBC's correspondent.

The new corona virus has killed at least 636 people and infected more than 31,000 people in China, according to the latest figures from the National Health Commission.

This virus causes severe acute respiratory infections and symptoms usually begin with a fever, which is followed by a dry cough. Most infected people tend to recover completely - as do people who have the flu.

Who reported his death?
Global Times, People's Daily, and other Chinese media reported the death of Dr. Li on Thursday.

The 34-year-old man was initially declared dead at 9:30 pm local time, and the news sparked a huge wave of reaction on Weibo, social media commensurate with Twitter in China.

People's Daily sent a tweet saying Dr. Li made "the whole country of mourning".

However, the Global Times later said he was undergoing treatment known as ECMO (extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation) which keeps the heart beating and the blood continues to carry oxygen without having to go through the lungs.

The Global Times said Dr. Mr. Li is in critical condition.

Journalists and doctors at the site, who did not want their names mentioned, told the BBC and other media that government officials had intervened.

Official media were asked to change their report and say the doctor was still being treated.

The media then reports the time of Dr. new death Li:

Who is Li Wenliang?

Li Wenliang, who worked at a hospital in Wuhan last month, used social media to warn his fellow medical officers to be careful when dealing with mysterious new diseases.

The warning he issued caused him to deal with the local police. He is considered spreading false news.

A month later he was considered a hero, after he told his story from the hospital bed.

"Hello everyone. This is Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist from Wuhan Central Hospital," he said in an upload.

Li worked at the outbreak center in December when he looked at seven cases of the virus which he thought were similar to Sars, which plague in 2003.

These cases are thought to have come from the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan and patients were quarantined in the hospital.

On December 30, he sent a message to a group of fellow doctors and warned about the outbreak and advised them to wear protective clothing to prevent infection.

At that time Dr. Li and most of his colleagues did not know that the disease originated from the new corona virus.

Accused of making false comments

After getting sick, Dr Li posted on Weibo social media why the authorities still claimed that no medical staff had been infected.

Then four days later he was visited by officers from the Public Security Bureau who asked him to sign a letter.

In the letter, he was accused of "making false comments" of a "very disturbing public order" nature.

"In earnest, we warn you: If you remain stubborn about your impudence and continue this illegal activity, you will be legally processed.

Do you understand? "At the bottom there is the handwriting of Dr. Li:" Yes, I understand ".

He was one of eight people investigated by police for "spreading rumors".

At the end of January, Dr. Li published a copy of the letter on Weibo social media and explained what had happened.

At that time the local government had apologized to him, but it was too late.

Within a few weeks in January, officials in Wuhan insisted that transmission occurred only in contact with infected animals.

No guidelines were issued to protect treating doctors.

But a week after the police visit, Dr Li treated a woman suffering from glaucoma. He did not know that his patient was infected with the corona virus.

In his upload on Weibo he described that on January 10 he began to cough.

The next day he had a fever and two days later he was hospitalized.

His parents were also ill and cared for.

Only ten days later on January 20, China announced a state of emergency due to the plague.

Dr Li said he underwent several tests for the corona virus and all were negative.

On January 30 he uploaded again: "Today, the nucleic acid test is positive. Finally there is clarity."

He added the upload with dog emojis with sharp eyes and protruding tongues.

The upload immediately received thousands of support comments.

"Dr. Li Wenliang is a hero," said one user, worrying about the treatment of Dr Li from his own country.

"In the future, it may be that doctors will be afraid to state early warnings when they see signs of infectious disease."

"Public health needs tens of millions of people like Li Wenliang," one commented.

Video of hospital construction within 10 days in Wuhan


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