Whistleblower Doctor Who Exposed China’s SARS Cover-up Dies
Jiang Yanyong, a former military surgeon who exposed the Chinese government’s cover-up of the 2003 SARS epidemic, has passed away at the age of 91.
Saturday in Beijing, he died of pneumonia, according to family members and Chinese-language media in Hong Kong.
Dr. Jiang was praised for saving lives after writing a letter in the early stage of the Sars crisis which revealed officials were playing down the threat.
At one point, he was placed under house arrest for his unwavering outspokenness.
In 2003, more than 8,000 people were infected with SARS worldwide. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 774 of them perished.
In April 2003, while working in a Beijing hospital, Dr. Jiang was alarmed to hear the Chinese health minister state that there were only a few cases of a new, fatal respiratory disease.
ALSO READ: North Korea Fires 2 Missiles Amid US-South Korea Drill
The senior doctor said he knew more than 100 people had Sars – severe acute respiratory syndrome – in military hospital wards alone.
He sent a letter exposing the lies in the official narrative to Chinese state broadcasters, who ignored it. But the letter was then leaked to foreign media who published his account in full.
His revelations forced the Chinese government to admit it had provided false information and spurred the WHO into action.
Overnight, stringent containment measures were implemented, which slowed the spread of the virus.
His actions also led to the sacking of China’s health minister and Beijing’s mayor at the time.
“I felt compelled to reveal what was going on, not only to save China but to save the world,” he said of his actions.
The following year, Dr. Jiang challenged Beijing once more. He called on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to acknowledge its 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protesters had been wrong – and that hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilians had been killed.
That night, he wrote about his experience working as a surgeon in Beijing. In a letter, he recounted how authorities “acted in a frenzied fashion, using tanks, machine guns, and other weapons to suppress the unarmed students and citizens”.
He stated that the CCP’s characterization of the protests as a counterrevolutionary riot would lead to “increasing disappointment and anger” among ordinary Chinese. “Our party must address the mistake it has made,” he wrote.
He and his wife, Hua Zhongwei, were later detained, but Dr. Jiang remained for years undeterred on the topic. He wrote a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2019, denouncing the Tiananmen Square crackdown as a “crime”.
ALSO READ: China to reopen borders to foreign tourists
Dr. Jiang was born in 1931 in the eastern city of Hangzhou to a wealthy banking family and went into medicine after seeing his aunt die of tuberculosis. He is survived by his wife, a son, and a daughter, according to South China Morning Post.
In 2004 he was awarded the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, one of several honors bestowed upon him for his public stances.
“He broke China’s habit of silence and forced the truth of Sars into the open,” the award citation read.
The experience of Dr. Jiang has been compared to China’s initial response to the Covid-19 outbreak.
In December 2019, Wuhan eye doctor Li Wenliang was investigated by police for “spreading rumors” after warning of a “SARS-like virus.”
After contracting Covid himself, Dr. Li questioned on Chinese social media why authorities claimed no medical personnel had been infected. Dr. Li passed away from the virus in February 2020.
HEY READER. PLEASE SUPPORT THIS SITE BY CLICKING ADS. DON’T FORGET TO HIT THE NOTIFICATION BELL FOR MORE UPDATES AROUND THE GLOBE.
