Coronavirus Killed the Doctor, Who First Warned about Its Outbreak

Chinese doctor Li Wenliang, who was one among the eight whistle-blowers, who first warned other medics of the outbreak of the Coronavirus, died of the epidemic on Thursday in Wuhan.

34-year-old Dr Li Wenliang was the first to report about the virus way back in December last year when it first surfaced in the Wuhan province, the provincial capital of China’s central Hubei province.

He was the one, who first broke the news of Coronavirus in his medical alumni group through the popular messaging app WeChat, where he described that seven patients from a local seafood market had been diagnosed with a SARS-like illness and are under observation in his hospital.

He also explained to his friends in the group that, in a test on the patients, he had seen the illness was due to a Coronavirus, which is a large family of viruses that includes severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which in the year 2003 was responsible for the death of 800 people in China and the world.

Dr Li also told his friends in the group to warn their loved ones privately. But within hours the message had gone viral without his name being blurred. He himself later quoted as saying to CNN, “When I saw them circulating online, I realised that it was out of my control and I would probably be punished”.

As the message went viral, he was accused of spreading rumour and was targeted by the Wuhan police for trying to blow the whistle on the deadly virus in the early weeks of the outbreak.

According to the National Health Commission, now a total of 564 people have died in China due to the virus and 28,018 confirmed cases of the virus attack have been reported from 31 provincial regions of China.

According to official confirmation, 636 deaths from the Coronavirus have been recorded till Friday, with the government confirmation of total infections due to the virus had climbed past 30,000. The toll was sharply raised by 73 new deaths from the epidemic only on Thursday. An additional 3,143 new cases of the infection were confirmed, bringing total infections in the country thus far to 31,161.

Hubei, the central province of China, where the virus first originated continued to be hardest-hit by deaths, which accounts for 69 new deaths, reported in the last 24 hours. According to the registered infections, more than 4,800 people are in serious condition.

The government of China is still struggling to contain the outbreak of the deadly virus, despite taking measures such as ordering millions of people to stay indoors in a growing number of cities, while hospitals are struggling hard to treat the surging numbers of ill.

In December last year, the contagion first emerged in the Hubei, later the virus spread to the rest of China and more than 25 other countries, prompting the World Health Organisation to declare the epidemic as a global emergency. 

The number of confirmed infections in China is going to grow significantly in the coming few hours, as the health commission is saying that more than 26,000 other people were ‘suspected’ of have already contracted the virus.