A year after his death, thousands of Chinese remembered the doctor who warned about the coronavirus

Thousands of social media users in China today paid tribute to Li Wenliang, the first doctor to be alerted to the coronavirus, on the anniversary of his death.

Li was among a group of doctors in Wuhan who warned that a SARS-like virus was spreading in the central Chinese city in December 2019 and was reprimanded by police for spreading “rumors.”

His death at the age of 34 in February 2020, after being infected with Covid-19 by a patient, generated a wave of regret nationally and much criticism of the government for its non-transparent way of manage the health crisis.

Since then, the Chinese government has focused its message on highlighting how effectively it has managed to stop the spread of the coronavirus in the country, while critical comments are quickly erased by internet censors.

But Li’s personal page on Weibo – equivalent to Twitter in China – remains a space for users to commemorate the trauma of the start of the pandemic, when authorities imposed strict containment on Wuhan City and Hubei Province. to the one that belongs.

Thousands of tribute messages were sent to mark the first anniversary of the doctor’s death.

“I thought everyone would forget it, after a year. But I was wrong, you will live forever in the hearts of the Chinese,” read one of the comments, which was reproduced by the AFP press agency.

China has mastered the pandemic better than many countries; As of May, they have not recorded any deaths and most new cases are imported or small outbreaks are recorded which are quickly brought under control.

A total of 89,619 people have been infected with the coronavirus in this Asian country of nearly 1.4 billion people, of which 4,636 have died.