Posted on 02/06/2020 10:38:24 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Wuhan Central Hospital has denied that Li Wenliang — one of the eight doctors who tried to alert the public about the coronavirus when it was first emerging in Wuhan only to be reprimanded by local police — has died.
“In the fight against the pneumonia epidemic of the new coronavirus infection, our hospital's ophthalmologist Li Wenliang was unfortunately infected. He is currently in critical condition and we are trying our best to resuscitate him," it said in its official Weibo account.
The hospital’s statement came amid conflicting reports about whether Li had died, with some reports saying that the doctor’s heart had stopped beating and was then given treatment with ECMO (extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation).
Multiple Chinese media outlets, including Beijing News and Global Times, earlier reported Li’s death, leading to an outpouring of mourning and tribute both on Chinese social media and at health agencies trying to stem the outbreak.
Li, 34, an ophthalmologist at the Wuhan Central Hospital, was found to be infected with coronavirus on Saturday.
“We are very sorry to hear the loss of any frontline worker who is committed to care for patients … we should celebrate his life and mourn his death with his colleagues,” said Michael Ryan, director of the World Health Organisation's health emergencies programme, said during a briefing on Thursday.
Chinese social media has been awash with anger over the death of the whistle-blower — some mourning Li’s death with candles, some demanding the authorities apologise for their treament of Li.
“None of the police has ever apologised to you. You could have been a national hero, but the dereliction of duty has claimed your life, along with a few hundred innocent lives,” a user said on Weibo.
“The reprimand of Doctor Li will be a shame in China’s anti-epidemic history. Doctor Li alerted the public at the expense of his life. Wuhan police station still hasn’t recalled that reprimand notice even after his death,” another Weibo user wrote.
On December 30, Li warned his medical school classmates in an online chat group that a Sars-like illness had stricken several patients in a Wuhan hospital and that all of them were quarantined in the emergence department.
The same day that the doctor shared the messages, local health authorities announced that the city had confirmed 27 cases of a new type of virus, most of them linked to a seafood market.
However, Li, along with seven other doctors who shared information about the outbreak, was summoned to the local police and forced to sign a letter promising to make no further disclosures concerning the disease.
They need to stand him up ala ‘Weekend at Bernies’.
.
Then if he isn’t dead already, he’ll be killed soon.
Do I sense the start if a loss of the “Mandate of Heaven” for the Chinese government?
“He is currently in critical condition and we are trying our best to resuscitate him,” it said in its official Weibo account.
Must be very critical.
Will his family get a bill for the bullet?
The Chinese government are in CYA mode. The coronavirus is a biological weapon that escaped the lab in Wuhan, either purposely or not! Can there be any doubt about that now?
It seems fairly obvious, but the communists can be made to look incompetent
This is not going to help the rumors in some countries, that the coronavirus turns people into zombies.
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