The story of China's crime against humanity is also the story of a young Chinese doctor's warning who had sensed the outbreak of a 'SARS-like- disease'  just weeks before Wuhan was put under lockdown.  

The doctor's warning, if it were taken seriously by China then, could have saved the world from the present situation, months after the virus began its deadly trek around the world from Wuhan.

Instead, the doctor faced the ire of the government for his revealment.

Death of a doctor: 

Li Wenliang, the medical practitioner, will be remembered for his fight against the COVID-19 as he lost his own life to the killer infection in February after contracting it from a patient.

Li was reprimanded by police for warning the public of a 'SARS-like' disease weeks before Wuhan was put under lockdown, reported Daily Mail.

Li recently earned global headlines when the Chinese government finally identified him as a martyr in the fight against the deadly virus.

Fourteen people who died on the frontline of fighting the novel coronavirus in central China's Hubei Province, have been identified as the first batch of martyrs, local authorities said, reported China's Xinhua news agency.

The 14 martyrs were Wang Bing, Feng Xiaolin, Jiang Xueqing, Liu Zhiming, Li Wenliang, Zhang Kangmei, Xiao Jun, Wu Yong, Liu Fan, Xia Sisi, Huang Wenjun, Mei Zhongming, Peng Yinhua and Liao Jianjun. They were described as excellent representatives of role models among frontline medics and epidemic prevention workers, reported the Chinese news agency.

Image: Li Wenliang

More than 3,000 medical workers have contracted the coronavirus while treating patients, and at least 26 of them have died, according to figures released by Chinese media, reported Daily Mail.

Li's death had triggered a massive row in the country.

According to renowned medical journal The Lancet, Li was an ophthalmologist who warned about the outbreak of COVID-19. 

"Born in Beizhen, China, on Oct 12, 1986, he died after becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, China, on Feb 7, 2020, aged 33 years," The Lancet informed.

According to the publication, on Dec 30, 2019, Li Wenliang sent a message to a group of fellow doctors warning them about a possible outbreak of an illness that resembled severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Wuhan, Hubei province, China, where he worked.

"Meant to be a private message, he encouraged them to protect themselves from infection. Days later, he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau in Wuhan and made to sign a statement in which he was accused of making false statements that disturbed the public order," the report said.

According to the Daily Mail report, the news of his death was initially reported by state media Global Times before being quickly retracted. His workplace, the Wuhan Central Hospital, then claimed that doctors were still trying to save him.

His death and the conflicting reports about it sparked an uproar on Chinese social media, with the public accusing the authority of trying to cover up the truth and controlling freedom of speech, reported the British newspaper.

'He wasn't allowed to speak. He wasn't even allowed to die,' wrote one person on popular messaging app WeChat as she commented on a circulating notice which apparently instructed all media outlets to suppress the coverage of the passing of Dr Li Wenliang, reported the newspaper.

'Dr Li Wenliang was only allowed to "die" after most web users had gone to bed,' condemned another person on Twitter-like Weibo, claiming that Dr Li's hospital was quick to deny relevant reports and declared the medic's death in the wee hours.

According to media reports, the doctor was even reprimanded by police for sharing the information. He was reportedly made to sign a statement agreeing not to commit any more 'law-breaking actions'.

A Chinese government investigation found last month that the police had acted 'inappropriately' in dealing with the case, reported Daily Mail. The police had pardoned the doctor and even apologised to the public.  

The news comes that Dr Li's colleague Ai Fen, who had informed him about the virus, has reportedly disappeared, sparking concerns that she has been detained for speaking out, reported Daily Mail.

 She has not been seen since her interview with Renwu Magazine on March 10, 60 Minutes Australia reported as referred in its report by Daily Mail.

Ai was earlier given a stern reprimand after sending information about the early stages of the outbreak to a group of doctors, she wrote in a now-deleted essay published in China's People (Renwu) magazine, reported Radio Free Asia.

Titled "The one who supplied the whistle," the article described how Ai 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, read the report.

She alerted colleagues to several cases of the virus, and eight of them were summoned by police for sharing the information. Among them was opthalmologist Li Wenliang who later died of COVID-19, reported Radio Free Asia.

60 Minutes Australia  also tweeted: "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. She has now disappeared, her whereabouts unknown. #60Mins."

Wuhan factor and  delay in passing information:

Coronavirus infections began cropping up in Wuhan in December – and reportedly as early as November – but the Chinese authorities did not inform the public that the virus could pass between humans until late January, reported The Guardian.

Now, as China celebrates what it claims is victory over the disease, the number of infections and deaths is increasing around the world. Officials from Australia, the US and the UK have accused Beijing of suppressing information, allowing a localised outbreak to turn into a pandemic, the British media said in its report.

A study conducted by the University of Southampton had said that if interventions in China had been conducted three weeks earlier, transmission of COVID-19 could have been reduced by 95 percent.

"The research also found that if interventions in the country could have been conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks earlier, cases could have been reduced by 66 percent, 86 percent and 95 percent respectively – significantly limiting the geographical spread of the disease. However, if NPIs were conducted one week, two weeks, or three weeks later than they were, the number of cases may have shown a 3-fold, 7-fold, or 18-fold increase, respectively," read the statement issued by the university.  

A Western news agency has claimed that China even failed to warn public of coronavirus threat for days since its outbreak occured.

In the six days after top Chinese officials secretly determined they were probably facing a pandemic from the new coronavirus, the city of Wuhan hosted a mass banquet for tens of thousands of people and millions began their annual trip home for the Lunar New Year celebrations, reported Associated Press.

President Xi Jinping warned the public on January 20 - the seventh day - but by then, more than 3,000 people had been infected during almost a week of public silence, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press (AP) news agency and estimates based on retrospective infection data.  

The six-day delay by China’s leaders in Beijing came on top of almost two weeks during which the national Center for Disease Control (CDC) did not register any new cases, internal bulletins obtained by AP confirmed.

Yet during that time, from January 5 to January 17, hundreds of patients were appearing in hospitals not only in Wuhan, where the illness was first detected in a market, but also across the country, the news agency reported.

China’s rigid controls on information, bureaucratic hurdles and a reluctance to send bad news up the chain of command muffled early warnings, analysts told the news agency.

Did COVID-19 leak from Chinese labs?

British Ministers are doubting that the coronavirus pandemic might have been caused by a leak from a Chinese laboratory, reported a British newspaper.

Senior Government sources told Daily Mail that while 'the balance of scientific advice' is still that the deadly virus was first transmitted to humans from a live animal market in Wuhan, a leak from a laboratory in the Chinese city is 'no longer being discounted'.  

One member of Cobra, the emergency committee led by Boris Johnson, said  that while the latest intelligence did not dispute the virus was 'zoonotic' – originating in animals – it did not rule out that the virus first spread to humans after leaking from a Wuhan laboratory, reported the newspaper.

The theory that the virus might have an origin from a lab in China's Wuhan region, which is considered as the epicentre of the disease, have been making headlines ever since the early outbreak of COVID19 occurred late las year.

The member of Cobra, which receives detailed classified briefings from the security services, said: "There is a credible alternative view [to the zoonotic theory] based on the nature of the virus. Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted."

 The virus has so far infected nearly 2 million people across the globe.

However, Downing Street said it 'did not recognise' claims the virus came from a Chinese laboratory.  

A Chinese embassy spokesman told Daily Mail: ‘There has been no scientific or medical conclusion yet on the origin of Covid-19, as relevant tracing work is still underway. The WHO has made repeated statements that what the world is experiencing now is a global phenomenon, the source is undetermined, the focus should be on containment and any stigmatising language referring to certain places must be avoided.’  

In a letter to the Daily Mail, responding to their report  on how the Chinese would face a 'reckoning' from Britain over the virus outbreak, the embassy's Zeng Rong writes: "Such reports completely disregard the tremendous efforts and huge sacrifice of China and its people, and deny China's significant contribution to global public health and safety."

Rong adds: "China wasted no time in identifying the virus's pathogen, sharing the genetic sequence with the World Health Organisation, taking the most effective, strict and comprehensive measures to contain the spread of the disease, sharing experience with other countries in need, and providing assistance to more than 120 countries, including the UK, and to four international organisations."

However, it is now well known how China manipulated WHO (World Health Organization), the UN arm, in covering up for its misdeeds.

According to an article in Foreign Policy, Beijing succeeded from the start in steering the World Health Organization (WHO), which both receives funding from China and is dependent on the regime of the Communist Party on many levels.

The Foreign Policy writes: 'Its international experts didn’t get access to the country until Director-General Tedros Adhanom visited President Xi Jinping at the end of January. Before then, WHO was uncritically repeating information from the Chinese authorities, ignoring warnings from Taiwanese doctors—unrepresented in WHO, which is a United Nations body—and reluctant to declare a “public health emergency of international concern,” denying after a meeting Jan. 22 that there was any need to do so.'

 WHO and its chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus have been alleged to have delayed the world from knowing about the onset of the deadly disease earlier this year when it had lauded China's efforts in tackling coronavirus, now called by the name, the Chinese Virus.

He allegedly gave a clean chit to China when the ground reality was much different as experts believe that WHO was late in alarming the world about the virus as it did not want to offend China.

WHO like a spokesperson of China, stated: “In the face of a previously unknown virus, China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history.”

World demands action against China:

Meanwhile, in an article published on The Times of Israel, Irwin Cotler, Chair of the Raoul Centre for Human Rights and Judith Abitan, Executive Director of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, urged the international community to stand in solidarity with the people of China in defending their struggle for democracy.

"The world is watching. People in China no longer stand-alone. Many are no longer fearful. They have already started publishing firsthand accounts of the CPC’s orchestrated cover-ups and monumental failures, revealing the rotten core of Chinese governance," read the article.

"In defending the struggle for democracy and human rights in China, the international community must stand in solidarity with the people of China in seeking to unmask the CPC’s criminality, corruption, and impunity," they wrote.

Suggesting international communities to take legal action, they said: "The community of democracies must undertake the necessary legal initiatives — be they international tort actions as authorized by treaty law, or the utilization of international bodies, like the International Court of Justice — to underpin the courage and commitment of China’s human rights defenders. This is what justice and accountability is all about."  

Former Foreign Minister of Australia told Sky News that if China wants to remain part of the mainstream international community it must allow a rigorous, independent and “full-throated” global investigation into the “origins of the coronavirus catastrophe”.

Downer said China “owes to the world an independent investigation into how this happened.” “They may be resistant, they may want to do the investigation on their own, but this has had a huge consequence for the world,” he told the news channel. “China owes it to the world for there to be a strictly independent investigation," he said.

“It would take a lot of explaining for them to come out and say to the rest of the world; we are going to ignore your concerns," the Australian politician said.

Images: Pixabay/Wikipedia Commons/Wallpapers