MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th March, 2020) Wuhan police on Thursday withdrew the admonition letter they had sent to the now late doctor Li Wenliang after he shared concerns about the new coronavirus, which he likened to the one that caused the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), via social media in late December, and apologized to his family.
"The Wuhan Public Security Bureau decided to cancel the admonition letter and would like to issue a formal apology to the family members of the person involved in this case. We will learn the lessons from this seriously and improve our work, and try our best to enforce the law in a strict, just and civilized manner in accordance with legal standards," the police said on its official Weibo account.
Concerned about a new virus that was making many people sick with pneumonia-like symptoms, Li had warned his colleagues that seven people who had recently been to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan had contracted SARS. He posted the message on December 30 on an internal WeChat social media group shared by doctors at his hospital. The next day, the Wuhan police summoned Li and seven other doctors who shared similar concerns over the outbreak. The police accused the doctors, including Li, of spreading false information because it could not at that point be confirmed that new virus was indeed the SARS coronavirus.
It turned out that the new virus Li tried to warn his colleagues about was COVID-19, which proved to be much more contagious than the SARS virus. After ignoring Li's warnings for more than 20 days, local authorities in Wuhan began to take strict measures to contain the outbreak in the city.
On February 6, Wuhan's hospital confirmed that Li died from the coronavirus disease.
