A doctor had just died from the contracting the Wuhan virus in a hospital—the first medical casualty from this latest outbreak.
Lest you’ve forgotten, during the SARS outbreak, 33 medical professionals died while battling the virus. 5 of them were from Singapore: 2 were doctors, 2 were nurses and 1 was a hospital attendant.
Back then, many of those tireless and unsung heroes volunteered for the fight and isolate themselves from their family, for in Spock’s words, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
These heroes weren’t forgotten:
And with this new Wuhan virus outbreak, the first hero has fallen, though he might not have been on the frontline.
Doctor Battling Wuhan Virus Dies After Being Infected For 9 Days
A 62-year-old doctor, Liang Wudong, has passed away today (25 January 2020) after he allegedly caught the virus on 16 January 2020 at Hubei Provincial Hospital of Integrated Chinese and Western Medicine.
He had complained of having a tight chest and feeling flustered, and was immediately put in quarantine.
He was then was transferred to the Jinyintan Hospital two days later.
Now, remember: back on 16 January 2020, the severity of the virus wasn’t high yet: people still didn’t know if the virus could be transmitted human to human, and the virus seemed to be contained then.
Dr Liang succumbed to the infections today. Like almost all deaths from the Wuhan virus, he had underlying health conditions: Dr Liang allegedly has a history of heart disease and coronary heart disease.
Might Not Have Be on the Frontline
The doctor was a Ear Nose & Throat (ENT) medic, and had retired last June.
There has been conflicting reports on whether he had been on the frontline.
Whether he had contracted the virus elsewhere or in the hospital is unknown yet; it’s also unknown if he had come out of his retirement to help out or had been simply another patient who happens to be a doctor.
But one thing’s for sure: as in any battle, heroes would emerge.
And over in Wuhan, heroes have landed in the epicentre.
(P.S. In this case, “epicentre” stands for “the central point of something, typically a difficult or unpleasant situation”, and not a shop selling Apple products)
450 Military Medical Staff Who Had Experience With SARS or Ebola Landed on Wuhan
450 military medical staff, some of them having experience battling virus outbreaks, landed on Wuhan today to add firepower to the fight (figuratively lah, please don’t overthink).
They had landed with military aircraft and will go to hospitals with large numbers of infected patients.
In other words, as people ran away from the virus, these people are going in.
In the meantime, the confirmed case has now ballooned to 1,313 worldwide and 41 deaths. As of now, the confirmed cases in Singapore remain at 3.
