A Wuhan doctor who was among the first to alert other medics to the spread of coronavirus has disappeared sparking concerns that she has been detained, reports suggest. Dr Ai Fen said she faced 'unprecedented, extremely harsh reprimanded' by officials at Wuhan Central Hospital after she shared a picture of a patient report labelled 'SARS coronavirus'.
The image was widely circulated and made its way to whistle-blower Li Wenliang who raised the alarm about the bug, which has killed more than 41,000 people worldwide
Dr Li was reprimanded by authorities for 'illegally spreading untruthful information online'.
Dr Ai gave an interview to a Chinese magazine criticising the hospital's management for dismissing the early warnings of the coronavirus but has not been seen since, 60 Minutes Australia reported.
After the show's investigation aired, a post on the doctor's Weibo account - a social media platform similar to Twitter - shared a picture with the caption: 'A river. A bridge. A road. A clock chime,' RFA reports.
Her rumoured disappearance comes after criticism was levvied at the Chinese government for lying and covering up key information during virtually every stage of its coronavirus response.
Beijing initially tried to cover up the outbreak by punishing medics who discovered it, denying it could spread person-to-person and delaying a lockdown of affected regions - meaning early opportunities to control the spread were lost.
Then, once the virus began spreading, the Communist Party began censoring public information about it and spread disinformation overseas - including suggesting that US troops could have been the initial carriers.
In the interview prior to her alleged dissapearance, Dr Ai admitted 'feeling regretful about not speaking out more' after four of her colleagues, including Dr Li, had contracted the virus and died while fighting the outbreak.
'If I had known what would have happened today, I wouldn't have cared about the reprimand. I would have told whoever and wherever I want,' said Dr Ai.
The interview was posted on Tuesday but quickly retracted from social media by its publisher People (Renwu) Magazine.
On 30 December, Dr Ai received a patient's report labelled 'SARS coronavirus'.
She said she broke out into a cold sweat after reading the lab results several times. The SARS epidemic 17 years ago infected more than 8,000 people worldwide and killed over 800, according to the World Health Organisation. The medic circled the word 'SARS' and sent a picture of the report to one of her former classmates and a group chat within her department.Dr Ai said she alerted hospital authorities about the case.
'Later that evening, the stuff was shared all over the place with screenshots of the report bearing my red circle,' she said.
She added: '[These platforms] included the chatting group, which Li Wenliang shared the information with. I thought something bad is going to happen.'
Two days later, the Wuhan medic was summoned by the head of the hospital's disciplinary inspection committee.
Dr Ai said she faced 'unprecedented, extremely harsh reprimanded' and was accused of 'spreading rumours as a professional' by the hospital's officials.
'I was in shock,' she continued.
'What did I do wrong? Knowing the fact that a significant virus has been found on a patient, how can I not tell when another doctor asks about it?'
Ophthalmologist Li Wenliang was among eight people who shared Dr Ai's picture before being reprimanded by police and accused of spreading 'fake news' for warning the public of 'SARS at a Wuhan seafood market' on social media.
The 34-year-old medic succumbed to the deadly contagion in the early hours of Friday morning local time despite attempts to resuscitate him.
Three other doctors who worked along with late heroic whistle-blower Dr Li Wenliang have also died of the disease after contracting it while fighting the outbreak.
Dr Ai said she doesn't think of herself as a whistle-blower: 'I was the one handing out the whistles.'
'This incident has shown that everyone needs to have their own thoughts because someone has to step up to speak the truth,' she added. 'The world needs different kinds of voices.' The original article has been removed from the magazine's Wechat account but web users have been posting screenshots of it online.
The great cover-up of China: Beijing punished covid whistleblower, claimed it came from US and 'is STILL lying about death figures' - so what CAN we believe from them?
China has lied and covered up key information during virtually every stage of its coronavirus response - from the initial outbreak to the number of cases and deaths, and is still not telling the truth, observers, experts and politicians have warned.
Beijing initially tried to cover up the virus by punishing medics who discovered it, denying it could spread person-to-person and delaying a lockdown of affected regions - meaning early opportunities to control the spread were lost.
Then, once the virus began spreading, the Communist Party began censoring public information about it and spread disinformation overseas - including suggesting that US troops could have been the initial carriers.
Even now, prominent politicians have warned that infection and death totals being reported by the regime are likely to be wrong - with locals in the epicenter of Wuhan suggesting the true tolls could be ten times higher.
Analysis of Beijing's actions lays bare the great cover-up of China:
Initial outbreak
Doctors in China, including Li Wenliang, began reporting the existence of a new type of respiratory infection that was similar to SARS in early December last year.
But rather than publicise the reports and warn the public, Chinese police hauled Wenliang and eight of his colleagues who had been posting about the virus online in for questioning
Wenliang, who would later die from the virus, was forced to sign a document admitting the information he published was false.
While China has been widely-praised for a draconian lockdown that helped slow the spread of the virus, evidence suggests that the country could have acted much quicker to prevent the spread.
Samples analysed as early as December 26 suggested a new type of SARS was circulating, the Washington Post reported, but Wuhan was not locked down until January 22 - almost a month later.
Wuhan's mayor also admitted an error that allowed 5million people to /*-+travel out of the city before the lockdown came into place without being checked for the virus, potentially helping it to spread.
Chinese authorities have also been reluctant to had over information on the country's 'patient zero' - or the first person known to have contracted the virus.
While Beijing claims the first infection took place on December 8, researchers have traced the virus back to at least November 17 and strong evidence suggests it was spreading in November.
A lack of information about the first patient has meant scientists are still unclear how the disease made the leap from animals into humans.
Theories include that it could have been carried by a bat or pangolin that was sold at a market in Wuhan and then eaten by someone, but this has not been confirmed.
Early reports
Chinese authorities initially reported that the virus could not spread person-to-person, despite evidence that it was spreading rapidly through the city of Wuhan including doctors being infected by patients.
This was used as justification for keeping the city of Wuhan operating as normal through a major CCP conference that was held between January 11 and 17, with authorities claiming zero new cases in this period.
China did not confirm human-to-human transmission of the virus until late January, when large parts of Hubei province including Wuhan were put into lockdown.
Despite reporting the existence of a 'novel type of pneumonia' to the World Health Organisation on December 31, Wuhan's largest newspaper also made no mention of the virus until the week of January 20.
That meant people in the city were not taking precautions such as social distancing to stop it spreading.
It also meant that people had begun travelling for the Lunar New Year holiday, which was due to start on January 24 and sees millions of people visit relatives, spreading the virus further.
Furthermore, China delayed reports suggesting that some 14 per cent of patients who initially tested negative for the virus or who appeared to have recovered tested positive a second time, only confirming such cases in February.
That further hampered efforts at early containment of the virus in places such as Japan, where patients who tested negative on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship were allowed to leave - only to test positive later.
Authorities in Beijing were also slow to report the deaths of two doctors from the virus, including one who was killed on January 25 but whose death was not reported by state media until a month later.
Origin of the virus
Despite early admissions that the virus began in the city of Wuhan, China later back-tracked - even going so far as to suggest American troops had brought the infection over after visiting the province.
Lijian Zhao, a prominent official within the Chinese Foreign Ministry, tweeted out the claim on March 12 while providing no evidence to substantiate it.
'When did patient zero begin in US? How many people are infected? What are the names of the hospitals,' he wrote.
Referencing a military athletics tournament in Wuhan in October, which US troops attended, he wrote: 'It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan.
'Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!'
In fact, America's 'patient zero' was a man who travelled from China to Washington State on January 15. The case was confirmed by the CDC six days later.
Chinese has also tried to push the theory that the virus originated in Italy, the country with the most deaths, by distorting a quote from an Italian doctor who suggested the country's first cases could have occurred much earlier than thought.
Giuseppe Remuzzi said he is investigating strange cases of pneumonia as far back as December and November, months before the virus was known to have spread.
Chinese state media widely reported his comments while also suggesting that the virus could have originated in Italy.
In fact, Remuzzi says, there can be no doubt it started in Wuhan - but may have spread out of the province and across the world earlier than thought.
Infection total
China has reported a total of some 82,000 infections from coronavirus, claiming a domestic infection rate of zero for several days in a row recently - even as it eased lockdown restrictions in placed like Hubei.
But, by the country's own admission, the virus is likely still spreading - via people who have few or no symptoms.
Beijing-based outlet Caixin reported that 'a couple to over 10 cases of covert infections of the virus are being detected' in China every day, despite not showing up in official data.
Meanwhile foreign governments have heaped scorn on China's infection reporting cannot be trusted.
Marco Rubio, a prominent Republican senator and former presidential candidate from the US, tweeted that 'we have NO IDEA how many cases China really has' after the US infection total passed Beijing's official figure.
'Without any doubt it's significantly more than what they admit to,' he added.
Meanwhile the UK government has also cast doubt on China's reporting, with Conservative minister and former Prime Ministerial candidate Michael Gove claiming the Communist Party could not be trusted.
'Some of the reporting from China was not clear about the scale, the nature, the infectiousness of this [virus],' he told the BBC.
Meanwhile sources told the Mail that China's true infection total could be anything up to 40 times as high as reports had suggested.
Death total
Doubt has also been cast on China's reported death toll from the virus, which currently stands at around 3,300.
Locals in epicenter city Wuhan have been keeping an eye on funeral homes since lockdown restrictions were partly lifted, claiming they have been 'working around the clock' to dispose of bodies.
China is also the world's largest manufacturer of disposable masks of the kind being worn to slow the spread of the virus by people while out in public.
But as the disease began gathering speed in the country in January, China began limiting exports of the masks while also buying up supplies from other countries, the New York Times reported.
As well as halting virtually all exports of masks, China also bought up some 56million masks and respirators from overseas while fears of a pandemic were still far off.
Despite reports from US mask manufacturers of factories in Shanghai being effectively nationalised, China denies it has any such policy in place and has said it is 'willing to strengthen international cooperation' on the issue.
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