[UPDATE 2/6/20 12:09pm PT: According to the CNN, the doctor is alive but in critical condition. "Hours earlier the same state media organizations reported that he had died."
"Wuhan Central Hospital said on its official Weibo account that Li Wenliang, 34, had become seriously ill. 'In the fight against the pneumonia epidemic of the new coronavirus infection, our hospital's ophthalmologist Li Wenliang was unfortunately infected. He is currently in critical condition and we are trying our best to resuscitate him,' the statement read."]
A Chinese ophthalmologist in Wuhan who tried to warn his colleagues on December 30 about seven patients who had come down with a SARS-like virus but was censored by the Chinese government – and and then detained two days later for "rumor mongering" – has died from the disease.
After being detained for two days, Li Wenliang, age 34, helped patients with the novel coronavirus who streamed into his overrun hospital, until he himself became infected with the coronavirus and was hospitalized.
From The Washington Post:
The full outlines of his story, which came to light in recent weeks as the Wuhan outbreak exploded into an international emergency, set off a swell of outrage in China, where citizens have long chafed at the government's penchant for relentlessly snuffing out any speech deemed threatening to social stability.
Many, including China's judicial authorities in a rare rebuke of the police, have wondered whether the epidemic could have unfolded differently had Li not been silenced at a critical juncture ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday in late January…
Li was released from detention Jan. 3 after signing a police document admitting that he committed an illegal act by making "untrue statements" on social media and promising that he would "earnestly reflect" on his mistakes.
Li, who was on the frontline of spreading the news about the virus early on, "became a national hero and symbol of the Chinese government's systemic failings."
Image: By Gianluca Tomasello – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
