Confusion as ‘dead’ whistleblower doctor said to be still alive
‘His heart reportedly stopped beating. He was given treatment with [extracorporeal membrane oxygenation]’
A CHINESE doctor who was among the first to raise the alarm about the new coronavirus was feared dead last night, after state media reported he had been killed by the virus – only to U-turn hours later amid an outpouring of grief and anger.
The Communist Party-controlled Global Times said last night that Dr Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist, had died at 9.30pm local time after contracting the virus.
But hours later, the newspaper deleted the story from its Twitter account and claimed that the doctor, who has a five-year-old child and another on the way, was fighting for his life. “Dr Li is still under emergency treatment,” the paper posted on Twitter at 1am local time. “His heart reportedly stopped beating at around 21:30. He was then given treatment with ECMO [extracorporeal membrane oxygenation].”
Wuhan Central Hospital added: “We are doing our best to resuscitate him.”
The about-turn comes after Chinese citizens released a deluge of anger and upset online, described in a tweet from the state-run People’s Daily website as a display of “national grief ”.
As confusion about Dr Li’s fate abounded, some commentators suggested it was an attempt by the Chinese state to rein in public outrage over its handling of the crisis. Chinese authorities had targeted Dr Li in late December after he urged fellow medics to wear protective clothing to work in a post on social media, in which he warned about a cluster of flu-like cases at Wuhan Central Hospital. He shared information about seven patients who were in quarantine.
Dr Li said their symptoms reminded him of Sars. But four days after Dr Li’s warning, the local Public Security
Bureau accused him of “making false comments” that had “disturbed the social order”.
He was one of eight people the police reprimanded for “spreading rumours” in the early days of the outbreak – when China was tightly controlling the narrative – and was forced to sign a letter stating that he would not publicly discuss his concerns again. Speaking to
The Daily Telegraph at the time, Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said she had felt the authorities’ response was heavyhanded and raised questions about whether the public could trust government information.
“I have real concerns about people who are supposedly ‘spreading rumours’ being harassed by authorities… they have been treated as anarchists,” she said.
And Dr Li told The New York Times: “If the officials had disclosed information about the epidemic earlier, I think it would have been a lot better. There should be more openness and transparency.” The doctor had broken his state-imposed silence in mid-january to share his story on Weibo, the Chinese social media site, after he had been admitted to hospital.
He described how he developed a cough and fever on Jan 10 – the same week Chinese researchers announced they had discovered a novel coronavirus, but when authorities still maintained there had been no new infections for seven days.
By Jan 12, Dr Li was in hospital and his parents had also fallen ill. It is thought that the whistleblower picked up the infection after treating an elderly glaucoma patient who had the new coronavirus. His infection was confirmed on Jan 30.