Thank you so much for this comment. I feel it quite balanced and Lola at the topic from multiple angles.
However I would like to inquire why you see Dr.Li's detention as evidence of "shutting down initial reports of the outbreak"?
First of all we do not have any kind of real insight on what Dr.Li was actually saying, and what was the severity of his reprimandation.
When something is on the lose that has the potential to kill millions, you need to be quick and purposeful in controlling the message. Wrong information can make people underprepare, but it can also make people overprepare.
The BBC is the UK's national broadcaster. SCMP is owned by the Alibaba group, a major mainland China corporation. Each clearly labels Dr. Li as a whistleblower. SCMP's story includes a highlighted summary "China’s health authorities and the public have offered their condolences over the death of the doctor, whom police tried to silence in the early days of the outbreak".
Both articles focus on Li's acts in breaking the nCoV story -- without really wanting or intending to -- the initial negative response of Wuhan police, and the narrative now, from authorities such as Zeng Guang, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (reported in the SCMP story) that "that the eight people punished by the police should be held in 'high regard'", again, quoting the SCMP directly.
As for ongoing suppression of discussion adjacent to the nCoV outbreak, messages of support for Li and criticism of the Chinese government continue to be censored:
The top two trending hashtags on the website were "Wuhan government owes Dr Li Wenliang and apology" and "We want freedom of speech".
Both hashtags were quickly censored. When the BBC searched Weibo on Friday morning, hundreds of thousands of comments had already been wiped.
However I would like to inquire why you see Dr.Li's detention as evidence of "shutting down initial reports of the outbreak"?
First of all we do not have any kind of real insight on what Dr.Li was actually saying, and what was the severity of his reprimandation.
When something is on the lose that has the potential to kill millions, you need to be quick and purposeful in controlling the message. Wrong information can make people underprepare, but it can also make people overprepare.