BEIJING, Feb 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Chinese media have changed a report that a doctor who blew the whistle on the coronavirus outbreak has died of the infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The state-run Global Times said Li Wenliang had died in Wuhan but later reported he was instead critically ill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The People’s Daily had earlier sent out a tweet saying Dr Li’s death had sparked “national grief”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Li warned fellow medics about the virus on Dec 30 but was told by police to stop making “false comments”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Global Times and other Chinese media initially sent out reports that Dr Li, 34, had died from coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was carried in other Chinese state media and picked up by international news organisations. The World Health Organization sent out a tweet expressing sorrow at his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Global Times then carried a report from Wuhan Central Hospital saying that Dr Li’s heart had stopped beating at 21:30 local time and he was given resuscitation treatment. Dr Li is currently in a critical condition, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The news of his death had triggered a huge wave of popular reaction on Weibo – China’s equivalent of Twitter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Li, an ophthalmologist, posted his story on the Weibo site from a hospital bed a month after sending out his initial warning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Li had noticed seven cases of a virus that he thought looked like Sars – the virus that led to a global epidemic in 2003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Dec 30 he sent a message to fellow doctors in a chat group warning them to wear protective clothing to avoid infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Four days later he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau where he was told to sign a letter. In the letter he was accused of “making false comments” that had “severely disturbed the social order”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was one of eight people who police said were being investigated for “spreading rumours”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Local authorities later apologised to Dr Li.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In his Weibo post he describes how on Jan 10 he started coughing, the next day he had a fever and two days later he was in hospital. He was diagnosed with the coronavirus on Jan 30. — NNN-AGENCIES
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BEIJING, Feb 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Chinese media have changed a report that a doctor who blew the whistle on the coronavirus outbreak has died of the infection. The state-run Global Times said Li Wenliang had died in Wuhan but later reported he was instead critically ill. The People’s Daily had earlier sent out a tweet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[215],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61124"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}