Coronavirus, “Dr. Li Wenliang died, first raised the alarm” (and was censored)

‘The doctor is dead Li Wenliang, doctor of Wuhan who had tried to raise the alarm at the beginning of the epidemic, but had been reprimanded by the police. ” This #BreakingNews has been launched since Global Times, the communist and nationalist newspaper of Beijing. Even the People’s Daily expressed “national condolences”. A few hours after the South China Morning Post he corrected: “Doctor Li is under intensive care, we are trying to save him,” they said from his hospital. Apparently the doctor’s heart stopped in the night and colleagues tried one ECMO (extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation) procedure. On Chinese social networks, people pray that they can do it.

A dramatic story, a slap to the authorities of Wuhan and to the system. In the affair of this doctor of 34 years doubts intertwine about the errors, omissions and delays of Wuhan’s health and political leaders at the beginning of the crisis.

Because the first case of “mysterious lung disease” in Wuhan was registered officially on December 8th. Other patients, a dozen apparently, within a week. It could not have been a simple coincidence that everyone had gone from the fish and wild meat market. But only in late December did the communication arrive in Beijing, or so it was said later. And until mid-January, the number of “mysterious pneumonia” patients for Wuhan was incredibly 45. Now there are more than 28,000 and the deaths are almost 600.

Could it have been avoided? There were hospital doctors in Wuhan who at the end of December no longer believed in the version of the “mysterious pneumonia” of which the authorities spoke. They feared the beginning of an epidemic. They exchanged information in a chat with former classmates of the 2004 course. The leader of the group was Dr. Li Wenliang, convinced that it was a return of Sars eradicated in 2003.

Li was an ophthalmology specialist and told WeChat that seven patients with severe lung symptoms were hospitalized in isolation. It was December 30th. A screenshot of his post was intercepted by censorship. Wuhan authorities sent the police to “reprimand the propagators of rumors,” as the Beijing newspaper now writes in the obituary. The online chat was overshadowed for having “seriously disturbed the social order”. Doctor Li was interrogated and warned. Police bragged on January 1 that they had neutralized “eight rumors.”

But on January 9 state television admitted that it had been isolated in Wuhan a new coronavirus responsible for pneumonia. On the web, people started asking if the eight doctors were right. The matter was reviewed by the Supreme People’s Court. Judgment: the doctor had not “made news”. However, in order not to deny the system that had denounced it, the review observed that however Dr. Li had made a wrong diagnosis because it was not Sars, but a new unknown coronavirus. The doctor went back to his job. The Chinese press and social networks have elected him a war hero. The censorship did not deem it necessary to intervene again. A few days ago Li Wenliang felt ill and was hospitalized. Diagnosis of severe coronavirus lung syndrome. Infected by a patient.