The death of Li Wenliang, the first Chinese doctor to warn of the dangers of the coronavirus, has not only sparked condolences but also sparked widespread outrage in the country. Li Wenliang contracted the virus while working at the Wuhan City Central Hospital. He died at the age of 34. He left a child and a pregnant wife. Meanwhile, before we continue, you may visit pioneertimeswpu.com to find more trending news.
In late December, Li sent a warning to fellow health workers to be careful handling patients with the coronavirus, but the police told him to stop “making false comments”. The news of Li’s death was greeted with deep condolences, as seen on the Chinese social media site Weibo.
But quickly, this sorrow turned to anger. Before Li’s death, there were accusations that the government was covering up the scale of the coronavirus outbreak. The government is accused of deliberately keeping the cases of the coronavirus secret. Some say they have not seen this scale of anger in recent times.
Popular hashtags include “Wuhan government must apologize to Dr. Li Wenliang” and, “We ask for freedom of expression”. These two hashtags have been censored and a search by journalists on Friday showed hundreds of thousands of comments with the hashtags removed. Only a few are still preserved.
Stephen McDonell, the British journalist correspondent in Beijing, says the coronavirus and Li’s death have become a “political disaster” for the Chinese government. This incident, say the British Journalist correspondent, reveals the fundamental weakness of the control system and command system of Xi Jinping’s government.
If the response to a dangerous health emergency warning is to deploy the police and ask the person issuing the warning to shut up, then clearly something is wrong with the structure of government work, the British journalist correspondent says.
The new coronavirus has killed at least 4,636 people and infected more than 94,687 in China, according to the latest figures from the National Health Commission.
