Name: Coronavirus kills Chinese doctor punished for raising alarm | DW News
Uploaded: 2020-03-09T22:32:32.000Z
Duration: 5 min 35 s
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Five weeks ago, on the 30th of December, he noticed a virus similar to SARS, a killer Chinese virus, from two decades ago.

He posted a warning on a Weebo group for fellow doctors.

Three days later, the third of January, he was reprimanded by officials and forced to sign an apology.

Wu Han shut down its food and wildlife market the origin of the virus, on the same day.

But then officials delayed a citywide locked down and the virus spread.

Weeks later, the city announced the virus, and the official lock down came according to statistics that was too late.

The virus is now rapidly spreading through China, although it's stabilized in other countries and the virus is killing people.

Dr Lee, one of many in life, he sparked a national conversation about freedom of speech in China and in death.

I deeply regret his death and feel very sad.

We need to see if his death can change anything, and I hope he did not die in vain.

It's now effectively dealing with the spread of the virus.

Jingping emphasize that since the outbreak of the Corona virus.

The Chinese government and its people have been making great efforts in fighting Theo Epidemic, but many people feel otherwise.

For them, Dr Lee's story shows that Chinese officials priorities are about control and political self preservation.

Well, for more on this, I'm joined by correspondent Matias Bellingham in Beijing.

Metiers tell us more about this doctor who has died.

And in the end of December, beginning off January, he noticed an unusual amount off patients who had bean something that seemed to be a viral pneumonia.

Now we know it is the novel Corona virus.

Ah, he talked about it in a chat group off fellow doctors on, was reprimanded by the police and told not to talk about it anymore.

He's sometimes called now a whistle blower, but he didn't even go public with this.

He talked with follow fellow colleagues, and he was punished for that.

Three weeks later, the government hard to admit that this pneumonia is far wider spread than anybody would have thought.

It's it's attempts to cover it up had allowed it to spread and then we have this massive lock down off many places in China, these massive inconveniences for everybody and this fear off a new disease that hits everybody.

This is what makes his story so touching.

Well, there is a lot of interest in this story of the hundreds of people that have died from this virus.

Now, why is this one particular doctor's death getting so much attention?

This doctor's that seems to galvanize all emotions that have bean built up with people here in China.

On social media, we chat moments that is something similar to Facebook, everybody, literally everybody posting about his death.

No matter whether these are people who work in government institutions or whether these are people who are critical off the government who support the government, who are educated, who are less educated.

This touches everybody because this virus off course concerns everybody on DDE.

His story is very much something that people can identify with.

A father whose wife is pregnant with their second child, went to work who saw something that he thought he should warn others about.

He was right, but instead he was reprimanded by the government on his warning was not listened to.

And this is why everybody is in this situation.

He is something like a martyr off how the government has handled this Corona virus.

But as we know that authorities and China do have a tight grip on information flows do people their trust that their government will tell them what they need to know about this epidemic.

This death and the reactions to it show that people do not trust the government.

Now we can see lots of posts about him on social media.

The government is not able or not willing to send everything.

But it carefully sends is everything that turns this death into outright criticism off the government.

You cannot post on Chinese social media phrases like the government owes him an apology or freedom off speech would have prevented this crisis.