132

Today 4 years ago, Dr. Li Wenliang warned of a suspected SARS patient in a Wuhan WeChat group. Soon later, he was arrested for “making false comments on the Internet about unconfirmed SARS outbreak.” (harakahdaily.net)

submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by tardigrada@beehaw.org to c/news@beehaw.org

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Dr. Wenliang's message went viral, becoming the earliest warning of what we now know today as Covid-19. He returned to work, but contracted Covid from a patient, and died on February 7, 2020.

Four years later, investigations about the virus’s origins aren't going forward, largely due to China’s reluctance to facilitate a comprehensive investigation by the WHO, the World Health Organization. Beijing hesitates to provide access to critical raw data which would not only help to identify the exact cause of the virus but would also facilitate the preparation for future pandemics.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] bbbhltz@beehaw.org 36 points 11 months ago

I've told this tale 3 years running now:

I work at an international business school. I try to stay up to day on world news. There was a paragraph written about "infectious pneumonia" in Time magazine or The Economist the last week of 2019 (so the issue published the first week of 2020, I think).

Returning to work a week later I mentioned it in class, because that year I had about 6 students from different parts of China.

They said, "it's nothing, just a flu."

The next week, as numbers started to be published they said, "no, it's an exaggeration."

The week after they were the first students to start wearing masks.

Week 4, they told us they hadn't heard from their families in several days. This would have been February 2020.

I felt so horrible for those students that year. They were only 18 or 19 years old. Sent to France in January 2019 (they are required to come several months before classes start in order to learn French and pass some tests). They were locked down March 16th 2020 and forced to take lessons on Zoom. Unable to return home for the summer. Took another semester on Zoom, etc., etc.…

I think they finally managed to head home in the spring of 2021.

this post was submitted on 31 Dec 2023

132 points (100.0% liked)

World News

22057 readers

50 users here now

Breaking news from around the world.

News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

For US News, see the US News community.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS