Doctor who warned of virus has died

WUHAN, CHINA — A doctor who was among the first to warn about the coronavirus outbreak, only to be silenced by police, died Friday after becoming infected with the virus, the hospital treating him reported.

The Wuhan City Central Hospital said at 3:48 a.m. Friday that the doctor, Li Wenliang, had died shortly before. “We deeply regret and mourn this,” it said on the Chinese social media site Weibo.

Just hours earlier, the hospital said it was still fighting to save Li.

The New York Times wrote about the doctor Feb. 1, documenting his efforts to alert colleagues about an alarming cluster of illnesses that resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, an earlier coronavirus that ravaged China nearly two decades ago. The article also reported Li’s middle-ofthe-night summons by unhappy health officials.

“If the officials had disclosed information about the epidemic earlier,” Li said, “I think it would have been a lot better. There should be more openness and transparency.”

Li’s fate is a singularly delicate issue for the Chinese government. Even as officials battle the epidemic, they have tried to stifle widespread criticism that they mismanaged their response to the initial outbreak in Wuhan, a city of 11 million in central China’s Hubei province.

Early reports of Li’s death, before the hospital said he was still alive, set off an outpouring of messages on the Chinese internet that lionized him as a hero who stood up to officials trying to play down a medical threat that came to engulf Wuhan, spill across China and ignite an international health crisis.

After the hospital said doctors were still trying to save Li, people began posting comments of support. The doctor has one child, and he and his wife are expecting a second in the summer.