Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who warned about the coronavirus, died.
It is sad news for the world as this doctor who first announced about this new virus died on February 6 after he was contracted with the deadly virus.
In December, he sent messages to his fellow medical people that there was a virus that looked like SARS, the deadly virus that also killed a lot of people worldwide.
The police authorities came up to him, and he was investigated for the said rumors which he spread. He was advised to “stop making false comments.”
According to his father, Li Shuying, “I don’t think he was rumor-mongering. Hasn’t this turned into reality now? My son was wonderful”. Li Wenliang’s wife is pregnant and is due to give birth in June.
The news made the Chinese community’s social media site grieving and then turned into anger. There are some accusations that the government is trying to hide the truth about the said virus.
His death has triggered the Chinese about the freedom of speech in their country; thus, its anti-corruption body said that it would start an investigation on such issues regarding Li Wenliang.
The reaction of the community brought a lot of issues such as grief, anger, and even hate for their community. Two hashtags are also trending, which says, “Wuhan government owes Dr. Li Wenliang an apology” and “We want the freedom of speech.” However, these hashtags were blocked and quickly censored. There were hundreds of thousands of comments with the hashtags which were wiped out.
One comment said, “This is not the death of a whistleblower. This is the death of a hero.”
Another photo that is circulating on Twitter right now that is from WeChat showed an image that says “Farewell Li Wenliang” written on the riverbank.
Dr. Li Wenliang shared his story on Weibo while he was on his hospital bed, a month after he announced the warning. He noticed that there were 7 cases of the virus that looked like the Sars.
On December 30, he told his fellow doctors to wear protective clothing to avoid being infected. After four days, the Public Security Bureau told him to sign a waiver that he was making false comments and that he severely disturbed the social order.
The government, later on, apologized for what happened. On January 10, he started to cough, and he had a fever the next days. On the 30th of that month, he was diagnosed with coronavirus.
The coronavirus has been reportedly increasing each day. The increase of the cases shows to be very alarming and dangerous.
It is hard to say if the virus is slowing down. It would take several days to know if the infection has cleared or spike up.
Furthermore, China’s figures still have some mismatches, and analysts think there is more going on.
Others are speculating that the cases could be ten times higher than reported. The virus is now in more than 25 countries, and as of the writing, two died out of mainland China.
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