According to the BBC, Chinese media are reporting that Dr. Li Wenliang has died from the novel coronavirus that has emerged in Wuhan. He was the first to identify that a new disease had appeared and warn his colleagues. For that action he was persecuted by the Chinese authorities.
Dr Li, 34, had noticed seven cases of a virus that he thought looked like Sars - the virus that led to a global epidemic in 2003.
On 30 December he sent a message to fellow doctors in a chat group warning them to wear protective clothing to avoid infection.
Four days later he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau where he was told to sign a letter. In the letter he was accused of "making false comments" that had "severely disturbed the social order".
He was one of eight people who police said were being investigated for "spreading rumours"
Local authorities later apologised to Dr Li.
It is obvious that not only does China have insufficient alert systems in place to identify new virus strains but that the desire of the Communist regime to “save face” has caused this outbreak to spread.
Thankfully at the moment it looks like the precautions finally taken by the Chinese government have restricted its spread and the disease itself is not as infectious as first feared -i.e. its transmission from person to person requires significant contact (One report suggests that somebody would have to be within 10 feet of an infectious patient for at least 15 minutes to reach a high risk of contracting it).