CORONAVISUS: PROBE INTO DOC’S DEATH
EPIDEMIC Whistle-blower Li Wenliang dies, sparking grief and fury; Trump lauds China’s containment efforts as ‘very professional’
BEIJING: China on Friday said it will investigate the death of the whistle-blowing doctor who was reprimanded by Wuhan police for issuing an early warning last month about the novel coronavirus infection before the authorities announced the outbreak.
Li Wenliang, 34, died from the infection on Friday, triggering grief and anger directed towards the government. The announcement of Li’s death was mired in confusion with the state media first announcing it, but then withdrawing the announcement, saying he was under treatment.
Li, an ophthalmologist at a hospital in Wuhan, the city at the outbreak’s epicentre, became one of the most talked about public figures after it was revealed that he was one of eight people reprimanded by the cops for “spreading rumours” about a “SARStype”
infection spreading in the hospital. Soon after, Li contracted the disease while treating a patient in Wuhan.
The virus has so far killed 638 people and infected more than 31,100 people globally in at least 25 countries.
China’s national supervisory commission has dispatched an inspection group to Wuhan to probe Li’s death. The WHO tweeted that it was “deeply saddened” over Li’s death.
FULLY CONFIDENT AND CAPABLE: XI TO TRUMP
Earlier in the day, Chinese President Xi Jinping told his American counterpart Donald Trump during a phone call that Beijing was “fully confident and capable” of defeating the epidemic and urged Washington to respond “reasonably”.
Later in the day, Trump lauded the Chinese government’s efforts to control the outbreak as a “very professional job”.
CHRONIC SHORTAGE OF PROTECTIVE GEAR: WHO
The world is facing a “chronic shortage” of gowns, masks, gloves and other protective equipment in the fight against the epidemic, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. Michael Ryan, the UN agency’s emergencies chief, warned that the demand for masks might jeopardise health workers responding to the outbreak.