This Is What You Need to Know about Li Wenliang and the Coronavirus
As Fortune magazine says in its 2020 year-end tribute to the heroes of the coronavirus, Dr. Li Wenliang will go down in history as one of the most recognizable faces of that pandemic. Images of his serious, focused gaze over his surgical mask became an early symbol in international news reports on the mysterious crisis happening in Wuhan, China, at the beginning of the year.
Dr. Li was a 33-year-old ophthalmologist practicing at Wuhan Central Hospital in Hubei Province. But his place in history comes from being one of the first physicians to ring alarm bells about a mysterious virus attacking people in his community who had connections to a Wuhan food market.
The local officials of China’s authoritarian government were intent on maintaining tight control of information about the virus. Dr. Li was arrested and coerced into withdrawing his statements. He was told to stop making “false comments” and spreading “rumors.”
Only days after being released from detention, Dr. Li was infected—likely while treating patients—with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. He died on February 7, 2020. He left behind a young child, his pregnant wife, and his parents, both of whom contracted and survived COVID-19.
Dr. Li faced two implacable adversaries: the coronavirus and the might of his own government. He continues to be an inspiration to other medical professionals, prisoners of conscience, and people all over the world who cherish science, reason, and freedom of speech.
After his death, his page on a major Chinese social media site remains active, and has become a digital tribute to him. To date, more than 850,000 user posts commemorate his role as a lone voice speaking up on behalf of truth and science.
Sounding the Alarm
Li Wenliang was born on October 12, 1986, in Beizhen, a city in Liaoning Province in China’s northeast. He attended Wuhan University as a medical student and took a job in the port city of Xiamen after graduation before moving on in 2014 to the ophthalmology department at Wuhan Central Hospital.
On December 30, 2019, Dr. Li included in his treatment notes for seven patients that he believed there might be an outbreak in Wuhan. He had never seen this respiratory virus before. It resembled the often-deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) that spread around the world in 2003.
Dr. Li was one of the first people on earth to identify the virus we now know as SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus. He sent a private message to colleagues, informing them that some patients in his hospital had been placed into quarantine. He urged his fellow physicians to take precautions against infection.
Dr. Li wanted his friends and colleagues to be ready, not only by wearing protective gear, but by mentally preparing to cope with the impact of the new virus. The group had already been speculating that there might be an emerging SARS-related virus, and Dr. Li’s warning was a point of confirmation.
His Arrest
Dr. Li’s message of warning went viral. He later noted that he quickly realized the situation had leapt out of his control, and that “I would probably be punished.” Only days later, the Wuhan Public Security Bureau brought Dr. Li in and had him sign a declaration saying he had made false statements that disrupted “public order.” After that, he was permitted to go back to work.
Dr. Li was among a group of at least eight individuals detained by Wuhan authorities under the charge of “spreading rumors” in the early days of the pandemic. In a video distributed on social media, he told the public that he had, under threat of legal consequences, signed the police statement. He nevertheless believed it was his duty to speak out. He told the Caixan news outlet that “a healthy society” is one in which there is not just “one voice.”
Dr. Li also told media that if there had been transparency in China and in his local district—if officials had allowed accurate information to come out as soon as the new virus had been detected—the spread of the virus would have been less damaging.
His Death
After Dr. Li’s death, a floodgate of righteous anger and public grief spread over Chinese social media sites. Numerous individuals posted to message boards in his honor. They expressed their gratitude for his work as a front-line physician and excoriated the government officials and medical establishment who tried to silence him. Notably, many users publicly called on the government to provide greater transparency and freedom of speech. The government quickly moved to censor all such posts.
Weeks after the incident at Dr. Li’s local police station, when a fuller picture of the contagiousness and lethality of SARS-CoV-2 could be seen, the country’s Supreme Court expressed a different opinion. It belatedly vindicated him and other whistleblowers: “It might have been a fortunate thing,” said the high court, if the “rumors” Dr. Li and his colleagues tried to share had been publicized and publicly discussed.
As has become clear to experts after the fact, the Chinese government’s attempt to seize control of facts and distort the narrative almost certainly contributed to the spread of the disease.
Tributes
After Dr. Li’s death, The New York Times quoted Tim Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Health Security. Inglesby noted that one of the “most important early warning systems” for detecting new outbreaks of disease is a front-line medical worker’s ability to identify patterns based on direct observation.
Inglesby told the Times that it is always extremely difficult to come forward and make unwelcome information known, as Dr. Li had. “It takes intelligence and courage,” he said.
In June 2020, Dr. Li’s widow gave birth to a baby boy. Moments later, she wrote on her social media page, addressing her husband’s memory, “The last gift you gave me was born today.”