The Wuhan Central hospital’s medical staff are now seriously infected. Four doctors have died and another four are on the brink.
Doctors recount being censored after alerting superiors. They then watched their co-workers die after being left in the dark.
On December 16, a patient was admitted with a high fever. Head of the emergency unit, Ai Fen was then told this person had a coronavirus.
On December 29, the hospital alerted the local CDC of four similar cases. But the CDC took no action.
The next day, Ai Fen received a lab result which confirmed a sars-like coronavirus. She sent a photo to co-workers and the photo soon spread through Wuhan’s medical circles.
Fellow coronavirus whistleblower, Doctor Li Wenliang, also shared the photo.
That same night, Wuhan’s health commission told doctors not to spread information about unknown pneumonia.
Both doctors were reprimanded. Li later died after contracting the virus. Other doctors were told not to disclose information about the virus.
In early January, patients who hadn’t been to the Huanan seafood market, where authorities first said the virus originated, started to show symptoms. So did medics who came into contact with them. A dotor telling Southern Weekly, “This is the direct evidence of human to human transmission.”
When infected doctors reported their illnesses to the hospital they weren’t allowed to call it unknown pneumonia or viral pneumonia. They could only call it a lung infection. One doctor noting that calling it a lung infection doesn’t show it’s a novel coronavirus and doesn’t imply human to human transmission.
By January 16, twenty-six medics in the hospital were suspected to be infected.
But The Wuhan health commission claim there were no such cases by that time.
In fact, Chinese health authorities didn’t even confirm human to human transmission until January 20.
The hospital also didn’t allow doctors to wear protective gear during initial discovery, saying it would create panic.
In early January, hospital management criticized Dr. Jiang Xueqing for wearing a face mask to a meeting. Many co-workers didn’t see him wear face masks afterward. He was infected several days later and died on March 1.
Juliet Song, NTD News, New York.
