Dr. Li was brilliant. There was no shame in what his reporting said. He is now dead because of the lack of actions by China. China and the world is now deprived of his brilliance. Why? This should not have happened to him. He was one of China's best and he is gone. That is a national shame.
February 8, 2020
The doctor (click here) who was among the first to warn about the coronavirus outbreak in late December — only to be silenced by police — died Friday after becoming infected with the virus, the hospital treating him reported.
The death of the 34-year-old doctor, Li Wenliang, set off an outpouring of grief and anger on social media, with commenters on social media demanding an apology from the authorities to Li and his family.
Last week, Elsie Chen, a New York Times researcher working with correspondents Chris Buckley and Steven Lee Myers, interviewed Li. He caught the virus from a patient and was hospitalized when Chen interviewed him Jan. 31 and Feb. 1, via the WeChat social media platform.
Here are some edited and condensed excerpts from the interview.
Q: When did you first realize that this new virus was highly contagious? It seemed that you hadn’t taken any precautions when you were infected.
A: I knew it when the patient I came in contact with infected her family, and I was infected right afterward. Thus I discovered it was highly contagious. The patient had no symptoms, so I got careless....
