E-Paper
China hails coronavirus whistleblower as ‘hero willing to speak the truth’
Through the intervening night between Thursday and Friday, news about Li’s critical state of illness and then his death was the top-read topic on China’s twitter-like microblogging site, Weibo.
China on Friday said it will investigate the death of the whistleblower doctor who was reprimanded by Wuhan police for issuing an early warning about the Coronavirus outbreak in January before it was officially announced.
Li Wenliang, 34, died of the infection early on Friday, triggering a rare eruption of grief and anger directed towards the government.
The announcement of Li’s death was mired in confusion with state media first announcing it, and then withdrawing, saying he was under emergency treatment.
Li, an ophthalmologist at a hospital in Wuhan, the city at the epicentre of the outbreak, became one of the most talked-about public figures after it was revealed that he was one of eight people reprimanded by Wuhan police last month for “spreading rumours” about a “SARS-type” infection spreading in the hospital.
Li contracted the disease later while treating a patient in Wuhan.
The new, or novel Coronavirus, has since killed 638 people including two outside China and infected more than 31,100 globally in at least 25 countries, persuading a rare declaration of an international public health emergency by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
On Friday, China’s National Supervisory Commission decided to dispatch an inspection group to Wuhan, capital city of Hubei Province, to thoroughly investigate issues related to Dr. Li Wenliang.
The national health commission (NHC) expressed its deep condolences over Li’s death in a statement on Friday.
It’s difficult to say whether the government steps would calm public anger triggered by the death.
Through the intervening night between Thursday and Friday, news about Li’s critical state of illness and then his death was the top-read topic on China’s twitter-like microblogging site, Weibo.
Estimates say news about him were viewed over 1.5 billion times and heavily discussed across social media platforms.
Chinese media outlets described him as a “hero who was willing to speak the truth”; netizens posted poems, photos and drawings saluting him.
Two top-trending topics – before being censored -- were “Dr Li deserves an apology from Wuhan government” and “freedom of speech”.
Censorship didn’t stop the outpouring of online anger and grief over the death of Li whose wife is pregnant with their second child.
In related developments, thousands of people are being quarantined on two cruise ships docked in Japan and Hong Kong, with 61 infected passengers said to be on one ship.
Meanwhile, President Xi Jinping on Friday told his US counterpart, Donald Trump during a phone conversation that China was “fully confident and capable” of defeating the coronavirus epidemic and urged Washington to respond “reasonably”.
Chinese state media said Xi said “…the long-term trend of China’s economic development for the better will not change” because of the virus.
Xi has called the fight to contain the virus a “people’s war” and told Trump that China has implemented nationwide mobilisation, comprehensive deployment and rapid response along with the strictest prevention and control measures against the virus.
Trump was quoted to have “expressed confidence in China’s strength and resilience in confronting the challenge of the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak,” in a White House statement.
“The two leaders agreed to continue extensive communication and cooperation between both sides,” it said.
