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littlemissmartypants

(22,418 posts)
Thu Feb 6, 2020, 12:38 PM Feb 2020

Wuhan doctor who was Coronavirus whistleblower dies from virus

Source: CNN World

Wuhan doctor who was Coronavirus whistleblower dies from virus

Dr. Li Wenliang — the Chinese whistleblower doctor who warned the public of a potential "SARS-like" disease in December 2019 — has died of coronavirus in Wuhan today, according to several state media reports.

Li was questioned by local health authority, and was later summoned by Wuhan police to sign a reprimand letter in which he was accused of "spreading rumors online" and "severely disrupting social order."

He was hospitalized on Jan. 12 after contracted the virus from his patient, and he was confirmed to have the coronavirus on Feb. 1.



Read more: https://edition.cnn.com/asia/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-02-06-20-intl-hnk/index.html



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deurbano

(2,891 posts)
1. He was only 34. Did he have an underlying condition or is this turning out be more of a threat to
Thu Feb 6, 2020, 01:15 PM
Feb 2020

the general population than previously thought?

RIP, Dr. Wenliang, and condolences to his family, colleagues, patients and others whose lives he touched.

iluvtennis

(19,758 posts)
6. My thoughts as well especially after 1 day old bAby has Coronavirus
Thu Feb 6, 2020, 02:08 PM
Feb 2020

The news report r indicated belief is that it happened inutero

Ms. Toad

(33,915 posts)
3. Pretty early on they determined it was not limited to people with underlying conditions
Thu Feb 6, 2020, 01:24 PM
Feb 2020

But once the misinformation was out there, it is hard to corral.

 

Ghost Dog

(16,881 posts)
13. This is true. A lot of Chinese are heavy smokers, though,
Fri Feb 7, 2020, 09:58 AM
Feb 2020

which could be considered such a condition.

Kablooie

(18,572 posts)
8. He was embarrassing the Chinese government.
Thu Feb 6, 2020, 08:48 PM
Feb 2020

He was ordered to sign a paper denying his warning about the virus but the information that he told them early on still got out to the world.

A healthy 34 year old is not normally at risk for a flu like virus.
He was an embarrassment for the Chinese government so it's very, very suspicious that he died.
I strongly suspect that he was eliminated deliberately.

Killing him is a punishment, a warning to others and he won't be able to be interviewed about the government later on and the story will die in the press.

littlemissmartypants

(22,418 posts)
11. I'm pretty sure he wasn't murdered. He was exposed during
Fri Feb 7, 2020, 12:15 AM
Feb 2020

A surgery he performed on someone's eyes. That's when he caught the virus.

herding cats

(19,549 posts)
12. You're correct Per him, an 80 year old patient of his was sick with the novel coronavirus.
Fri Feb 7, 2020, 12:49 AM
Feb 2020

He assumed he caught it from her.

Peace to him and his loved ones.

Princess Turandot

(4,784 posts)
4. I watched a CNN video interview with him just yesterday..
Thu Feb 6, 2020, 01:50 PM
Feb 2020

How very sad. A brave young man.

Condolences to his family.

BTW, while he may have had online exchanges with members of the general public about the illness, he was also alerting other physicians as to what he was seeing.

dalton99a

(81,078 posts)
9. "The median age of patients is between 49 and 56 years"
Thu Feb 6, 2020, 11:33 PM
Feb 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/health/coronavirus-children.html

Why the New Coronavirus (Mostly) Spares Children
So far, very few young children seem to be falling ill. The pattern was seen in outbreaks of SARS and MERS, too.

By Apoorva Mandavilli
Feb. 5, 2020

The new coronavirus has infected more than 28,000 people, and at least 563 have died. But relatively few children appear to have developed severe symptoms so far, according to the available data.

“The median age of patients is between 49 and 56 years,” according to a report published on Wednesday in JAMA. “Cases in children have been rare.”

So why aren’t more children getting sick?

“My strong, educated guess is that younger people are getting infected, but they get the relatively milder disease,” said Dr. Malik Peiris, chief of virology at the University of Hong Kong, who has developed a diagnostic test for the new coronavirus.

Scientists may not be seeing more infected children because “we don’t have data on the milder cases,” he said.

“If this coronavirus spreads worldwide, and it spreads as widely as the seasonal flu does, probably we’ll see more,” he added.

The child, too, had signs of viral pneumonia in the lungs, doctors found — but no outward symptoms. Some scientists suspect that this is typical of coronavirus infection in children.

“It’s certainly true that children can be either asymptomatically infected or have very mild infection,” said Dr. Raina MacIntyre, an epidemiologist at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who has been studying the spread of the new coronavirus.

In many ways, this pattern parallels that seen during outbreaks of SARS and MERS, also coronaviruses. The MERS epidemics in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and in South Korea in 2015 together claimed more than 800 lives. Most children who were infected never developed symptoms.

No children died during the SARS epidemic in 2003, and the majority of the 800 deaths in the outbreak were in people over age 45, with men more at risk.

littlemissmartypants

(22,418 posts)
10. I read somewhere that they suspect that a seasonal flu outbreak is
Fri Feb 7, 2020, 12:12 AM
Feb 2020

Complicating the ability to confidently make differential diagnosis accurate. There's no doubt that China is playing catch up with overall management of what is shaping up to be a disaster.

Eugene

(61,595 posts)
14. A Rare Online Revolt Emerges in China Over Death of Coronavirus Whistle-Blower
Fri Feb 7, 2020, 10:07 AM
Feb 2020

Source: New York Times

A Rare Online Revolt Emerges in China Over Death of Coronavirus Whistle-Blower

The doctor, Li Wenliang, had been silenced by the police after warning about the new coronavirus that has killed hundreds in China and sickened thousands.

By Li Yuan
Feb. 7, 2020
Updated 7:40 a.m. ET

They posted videos of the Les Misérables song, “Do You Hear the People Sing.” They invoked article No. 35 of China’s Constitution, which stipulates freedom of speech. They tweeted a phrase from the poem “For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

The Chinese public have staged what amounts to an online revolt after the death of a doctor, Li Wenliang, who tried to warn of a mysterious virus that has since killed hundreds of people in China, infected tens of thousands and forced the government to corral many of the country’s 1.4 billion people.

Since late Thursday, people from different backgrounds, including government officials, prominent business figures and ordinary online users, have posted numerous messages expressing their grief at the doctor’s death and their anger over his silencing by the police after sharing his knowledge about the new coronavirus. It has prompted a nationwide soul-searching under an authoritarian government that allows for little dissent.

“I haven’t seen my WeChat timeline filled with so much forlornness and outrage,” Xu Danei, founder of a social media analytics company, wrote on the messaging platform WeChat.

-snip-

After speculation of Mr. Li’s death began swirling online Thursday evening, the Communist Party’s propaganda machine went into full gear, trying to control the message. But it didn’t seem as effective as it had in the past.

The outpouring of messages online from sad, infuriated and grieving people was too much for the censors. ...

-snip-


Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/business/china-coronavirus-doctor-death.html
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