China To Investigate After Whistleblower Doctor Dies From Coronavirus – By Scott Neuman, Emily Feng & Huo Jingnan (NPR) / Feb 7 2020
China says it has launched an investigation into “issues” related to the death on Friday of a doctor whose early efforts to alert his colleagues to the dangers of a new coronavirus were quashed by authorities.
Meanwhile, President Trump spoke with China’s leader Xi Jinping to discuss the coronavirus epidemic, which has rapidly gone global since it began in China in December.
Dr. Li Wenliang, an ophthalmologist working in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the epidemic originated, died on Friday local time, weeks after he was hospitalized and treated for coronavirus infection.
Li, 34, had first sought to warn his college classmates in the medical profession of the disease in late December. Using the popular Chinese social media platform WeChat, Li wrote that he had become aware of several cases similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, another coronavirus that killed nearly 800 people in a 2002-2003 outbreak that Beijing initially tried to cover up.
However, within days, local police paid him a visit and reprimanded him for the posts. He signed a statement on Jan. 3, a copy of which has circulated online in China, in which he acknowledges making “false statements.”
“This is a type of illegal behavior!” the statement said, according to The Associated Press.
Continue to article: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/07/803680463/china-to-investigate-after-whistleblower-doctor-dies-from-coronavirus
