DOC RIDDLE
Whistleblowing Wuhan doctor among first to raise coronavirus alert mysteriously vanishes after slamming hospital chiefs
A CHINESE doctor who condemned her bosses for trying to stifle her warnings about the coronavirus has mysteriously disappeared, it was reported.
Hospital A&E head Ai Fen told a group of eight Wuhan doctors about the emergence of the virus at the end of last year who were themselves reprimanded.
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One of the group, Li Wenliang, subsequently died of the disease after becoming infected through a patient, leading to widespread anger in China.
According to Australia’s Channel 9 ‘60 Minutes’ programme Dr Ai has not been seen for over a fortnight.
“Just two weeks ago the head of Emergency at Wuhan Central hospital went public, saying authorities had stopped her and her colleagues from warning the world,” it tweeted.
“She has now disappeared, her whereabouts unknown.”
Soon after the programme was shown, Ai's account on Chinse social media platform Weibo sent out a single, cryptic post with a photo taken from Wuhan's Jianghan Road.
"A river. A bridge. A road. A clock chime," the post read.
In her article for China's People (Renwu) magazine, Dr Ai says she was reprimanded after sending information about the early stages of the outbreak to a group of doctors,
The now deleted article titled "The one who supplied the whistle" described how she had been silenced by her bosses after she took a photo of a patient's test results and circled the words "SARS coronavirus" in red.
She alerted colleagues to several cases of the virus, and eight of them were summoned by police for sharing the information.
The Chinese authorities have been accused of trying to cover-up the coronavirus outbreak in its early stages.
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The group of whistleblowers, which included Dr Li, who tried to warn Chinese officials last month about the deadly outbreak at Wuhan's live animal market were arrested for "spreading rumours".
It's believed they were held for talking about the coronavirus outbreak on a Chinese messaging service WeChat.
The city’s mayor also admitted it was a mistake to allow 5 million people to travel out of the city before the lockdown without being checked for the virus.
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