Li Wenliang

Dr. Li Wenliang (1986-2020) was an ophthalmologist in Wuhan, China who became a whistleblower and victim of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Efforts by Dr. Li to alert the Chinese people to CCP coronavirus in late December 2019 in the face of communist censorship and repression, and his death 5 weeks later elevated to Dr. Li to the status of folk hero among the Chinese people.

On December 30, 2019 Dr. Li posted the lab test result of a coronavirus patient in a group chat to a class of about 150 students writing:

“7 cases of SARS have been confirmed in the South China Fruit and Seafood Market and they were isolated in the emergency department of our hospital. Please tell your families to take preventative measures.”

Some doctors confirmed that healthcare workers were starting to become infected around this time, a significant sign that the virus could spread between humans. Health officials in Wuhan were alerted. Instead of ramping up safety measures and alerting the public, on the same day they issued a notice forbidding all medical institutes or individuals from disclosing any information regarding the new disease. At midnight, Dr. Li was summoned by the CCP Security Police. They questioned him about why he was spreading rumors online.

On December 31, Wuhan’s health commission posted an announcement about the outbreak on their website. They confirmed 27 cases of the infection and said there was no evidence that the disease was contagious among humans. According to a research paper written by Chinese officials, which was published later, the number of virus cases had reached at least 105 by the end of 2019. At that point, 15 people had already died. A media report also showed that one major hospital in Wuhan, Xiehe Hospital, was forced to transform an entire floor of the facility into “quarantine space for contagious disease.” Taiwan officials notified the World Health Organization (WHO) that the virus was being spread from human-to-human. Communist party officials in China and military personnel began taking preventative measures, however the public was never alerted.

On January 3, 2020 Dr. Li was asked to sign a confession to charges of committing crimes against the leftist regime, spreading “illegal and false” information and and that he had “severely disrupted social order.” 7 other doctors also were charged. The confesion read:

"On December 30, 2019, WeChat group "Clinical Wuhan University 04" issued untrue statements about 7 cases of SARS diagnosed in the South China fruit and seafood market. Now raise warnings and admonitions according to law on the illegal issue of untrue statements on the Internet. Your behavior severely disrupts social order. Your behavior has exceeded the scope permitted by law, and it violates the relevant provisions of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Public Security Management Penalties, which is an illegal act! The public security organ hopes that you will actively cooperate with your work, follow the advice of the police, and stop the illegal behavior. can you do it?
Answer: Yes
We hope that you calm down and reflect carefully, and solemnly warn you: if you are stubborn, do not think about repentance, and continue to carry out illegal activities, you will be punished by the law! do you understand?
Answer: understand"

Li was ordered to return to work where he contracted the virus. On January 6, 2020 the center for disease control in Shanghai acquired the complete gene sequencing of the new virus. They found over 89 percent similarity between the new virus and the deadly SARS virus that caused a pandemic in 2003. The information was sent to China’s national CDC in an internal document. From January 6 to January 17, CCP officials reported zero new cases. In the 11 day period the communist authorities in Wuhan City and Hubei Province held their most important annual political meetings. Over 2,000 “representatives of the people” gathered to discuss the “amazing achievements of 2019” and how 2020 will be “a tremendous and promising year.” There was little mention of the coronavirus. On January 14 the World Health Organization tweeted,

"Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan #China

The same day a group of Hong Kong journalists accompanied Hong Kong experts who were invited to conduct research on the virus outbreak. The reporters were later detained by Chinese Security Police, who photographed their reporter IDs and asked them to delete all footage taken inside hospitals.

At this same time a post on the Chinese social media site Weibo, a person’s dad was confirmed to have viral pneumonia. But the Xiehe Hospital in Wuhan refused to admit the father due to a shortage of hospital beds. Another netizen posted that his entire family was infected. They went to the Tongji Hospital in Wuhan and saw that “there were so many patients that some had to lie on the floor of the corridor.” His father was also sent home to self-quarantine because there weren’t enough hospital beds. The post was later deleted. So were all other posts in the user’s account. That was the week Wuhan authorities didn’t report a single confirmed or suspected case.

From January 12 to 16, an estimate of over 3 million passengers left Wuhan by train over the Chinese New Year holiday, to visit family and friends in other cities in China. On January 17, 2020 Wuhan’s tourism bureau issued over 200,000 free tourism tickets. It was an effort to entice people to visit the city, so they could experience the “Chinese style and warm sentiments of Wuhan.” On January 18, Baibuting, a populous district in Wuhan, held an annual banquet to celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday. Three days before, staff from the neighborhood committee who were concerned about the outbreak asked if they could cancel the banquet, but communist officials denied the request. Over 40,000 families attended the banquet. Local communist apparatchiks ordered labs to stop testing for the virus and destroy the existing samples.

On January 20 President Xi finally acknowledged the crisis. On January 23 the entire city of Wuhan, 11 million people, was put on lockdown. By the end of the month 50 million Chinese were on lockdown. On January 28, the Supreme Court of the Communist Party of China issued a statement that Dr. Li and the other "rumor makers" had been "rectified".

On the evening of February 6, Dr. Li died. The news quickly aroused strong attention and condemnation. However, Wuhan Central Hospital later issued a microblog saying that Li Wenliang was in critical condition and doctors were working to save his life. A number of insiders and doctors disclosed on social media that in the process, the authorities faced public indignation and ordered a series of attempts at resuscitation in order to suppress the public's indignation. A few hours later, the news of Li Wenliang's death was again released and detonated to the WeChat and Weibo. By 6 a.m. local time on Friday, the keywords " Dr. Li Wenliang's death " and "Li Wenliang's death" ranked high on the Weibo topic list, with a total of 670 million views and 737,000 discussions. Before the end of the day news of Dr. Li's death had over 1.5 billion views on Weibo.