Li Wenliang

The outbreak was later confirmed not to be SARS but a new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Li returned to work and later contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, from a patient who was not known to be infected. He died from the disease on 7 February 2020, at age 33. A subsequent Chinese official inquiry exonerated him, and the Communist Party of China formally offered a "solemn apology" to his family and revoked the admonishment of him.

After screenshots of his WeChat messages were shared on Chinese Internet and gained more attention, the supervision department of his hospital summoned him for a talk, blaming him for leaking the information. On 3 January 2020, police from the Wuhan Public Security Bureau investigating the case interrogated Li, issued a formal written warning and censuring him for "making false comments on the Internet". He was made to sign a letter of admonition promising not to do it again. The police warned him that any recalcitrant behaviour would result in a prosecution.

According to a colleague, Li's condition became critical on 5 February. On 6 February, while Li was on the phone with a friend, he told the friend that he was having trouble breathing and that his oxygen saturation had dropped to 85%. At around 19:00, he was sent to the emergency room. Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) was reportedly used to keep him alive. The effort was unsuccessful, and according to China Newsweek, his heartbeat stopped at 21:30. In social media posts, the Chinese state media reported that Li had died, but the posts were soon deleted. Later, Wuhan Central Hospital released a statement contradicting reports of his death: "In the process of fighting the coronavirus, the eye doctor from our hospital Li Wenliang was unfortunately infected. He is now in critical condition and we are doing our best to rescue him." The hospital formally announced that Li had died at 2:58 a.m. on 7 February 2020. During the confusion, more than 17 million people were watching the live stream for his status updates.

On 9 February 2020, hundreds of people in New York commemorated Li in a tribute at Central Park. The U.S. Senate honored Li by passing a resolution calling for transparency and cooperation from the Government of the People's Republic of China and the Communist Party of China.

In late December, doctors in Wuhan were puzzled by many pneumonia cases of unknown cause. On 30 December 2019, the Wuhan CDC sent out an internal memo to all Wuhan hospitals to be alerted and started an investigation into the exact cause of the pneumonia. On the same day, Li saw a patient's report which showed a positive result with a high confidence level for SARS coronavirus tests. The report had originated from Ai Fen, director of the emergency department at Wuhan Central hospital, who became alarmed after receiving laboratory results of a patient whom she had examined who exhibited symptoms akin to influenza resistant to conventional treatment methods. The report contained the phrase "SARS coronavirus". Ai had circled the word "SARS", and sent it to a doctor at another hospital in Wuhan. From there it spread throughout medical circles in the city, where it reached Li. At 17:43, he wrote in a private WeChat group of his medical school classmates: "7 confirmed cases of SARS were reported [to hospital] from Huanan Seafood Market." He also posted the patient's examination report and CT scan image. At 18:42, he added "the latest news is, it has been confirmed that they are coronavirus infections, but the exact virus strain is being subtyped". Li asked the WeChat group members to inform their families and friends to take protective measures whilst requesting discretion from those he shared the information with; he was upset when the discussion gained a wider audience than he had hoped.

The existence of Li’s personal blog where he documented his discoveries was reported by the Italian newspaper La Stampa on 1 February. Li was already in the spotlight in the Chinese media because he was thought to be one of the eight "rumor mongers" warned by Wuhan police. However, according to some media, Wuhan police summoned eight "rumor mongers" on 1 January, while Li and Xie Linka, another doctor from Wuhan Union Hospital, were warned on 3 January, meaning that the latter two might not be part of the group. Li later responded that he did not know whether he was one of the so-called rumour mongers, but that he had been admonished for claiming a SARS outbreak, which at that time was unconfirmed. The police punishment of Li for "rumor mongering" was aired on China Central Television, signalling central government endorsement for the reprimand, according to two reporters for the South China Morning Post.

Li's death provoked considerable grief and anger on social media which became extended to a demand for freedom of speech. The hashtag #wewantfreedomofspeech gained over 2 million views and over 5,500 posts within 5 hours before it was removed by the censors, as were other related hashtags and posts. Wuhan citizens placed flowers and blew whistles at Wuhan Central Hospital, where Li worked and died, as a tribute to him. On the Internet, people spontaneously launched the activity themed "I blew a whistle for Wuhan tonight," where everyone kept all the lights off in their homes for five minutes, and later blew whistles and waved glitter outside of their windows for five minutes to mourn Li. Many people left messages in response to Li's last post on Sina Weibo, some lamenting his death and expressing anger at the authorities. He was also proclaimed an "ordinary hero". The World Health Organization posted on Twitter saying that it was "deeply saddened by the passing of Dr Li Wenliang" and "we all need to celebrate work that he did on #2019nCoV".

A group of Chinese academics, led by Tang Yiming – head of the school of Chinese classics at Central China Normal University in Wuhan – published an open letter urging the government to both protect free speech and apologize for Li's death. The letter emphasized the right to free speech, ostensibly guaranteed by the Chinese constitution. Tang said that the viral outbreak was a man-made disaster, and that China ought to learn from Li Wenliang. Tang also wrote he felt that senior intellectuals and academics must speak up for the Chinese people and for their own consciences. "We all should reflect on ourselves", he wrote, "and the officials should rue their mistakes even more." The letter alleges that Li Wenliang "is also a victim of speech suppression." Jie Qiao, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and President of Peking University Third Hospital in Beijing called Li a "whistle-blower dedicating his young life in the front line".

After graduation in 2011, Li worked at the Xiamen Eye Center of Xiamen University for three years. In 2014, Li became an ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital in Wuhan.

Li Wenliang (Chinese: 李文亮 ; 12 October 1986 – 7 February 2020) was a Chinese ophthalmologist who worked at Wuhan Central Hospital. On 30 December 2019, Wuhan CDC issued emergency warnings to local hospitals about a number of mysterious pneumonia cases discovered in the city in the previous week. On the same day, Li received an internal diagnostic report of a suspected Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) patient from other doctors which he in turn shared with his friends. He was dubbed a whistleblower when that shared report later circulated publicly despite him requesting confidentiality from those he shared the information with. Rumours of a deadly SARS outbreak then spread quickly on Chinese social media platforms, and Wuhan police summoned and admonished him for "making false comments on the Internet about unconfirmed SARS outbreak".

Li Wenliang was born on 12 October 1986 in a Manchu family in Beizhen, Jinzhou, Liaoning. He attended Beizhen High School (北镇市高级中学 ) and graduated in 2004 with an excellent academic record. He attended Wuhan University School of Medicine as a clinical medicine student in a seven-year combined bachelor's and master's degree program. He joined the Communist Party of China in his second year. His mentor praised him as a diligent and honest student. His college classmates said he was a basketball fan.