Reports say whistle-blower doc dead; toll climbs to 563
BEIJING: A doctor who had been detained by Chinese police for sounding the alarm on what turned out to be the new coronavirus outbreak in a Wuhan hospital last December died of the disease on Thursday, news agencies reported, but the state-run media gave conflicting accounts.
The reported death of Li Wenliang, 34, came as China said that 19 foreign nationals living in the country have contracted the virus, without disclosing their nationalities. The outbreak has killed 563 people and infected more than 28,000.
State-run tabloid Global Times, which initially reported Li died of complications from the infection on Thursday evening, later changed his status to “critically ill”, amid an online outcry. The wife of the ophthalmologist at the Wuhan central hospital is pregnant with their second child. Li’s parents had contracted the disease but are said to be doing better.
On December 30, Li chanced upon a test result of a patient who had been admitted to his hospital with a new, unidentified disease.
He shared the information on a private Wechat group with seven other friends, saying that from the results it looked like SARS, an epidemic which killed hundreds in China in 2002-03 but was initially covered up by the government. Li was a teenager then but clearly remembered the impact of the epidemic. Li and his friends were summoned by the Wuhan police, detained and then forced to sign a confession.