A man stands outside the Wuhan Central Hospital on Thursday. Li Wenliang worked and died due to coronavirus infection at the hospital. Photo: Cui Meng/GT

 
Liu Li, a doctor at Wuhan Central Hospital who was also a member of the hospital’s ethics committee, passed away on Friday morning after being infected with the novel coronavirus, becoming the fifth medical staff member at the hospital to have died amid the outbreak, several sources confirmed with the Global Times. 

Liu was also a coworker of Li Wenliang, one of the eight "whistleblowers" who tried to warn other medics of the coronavirus outbreak but was reprimanded by local police. Li died on February 7 after contracting the novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19).

The Wuhan Central Hospital has been the most severely affected hospital in the city where its first coronavirus infection was reported in December 2019, as five medical staff have died since the outbreak, and some are still in critical condition, several sources close to the matter confirmed with the Global Times. 

Liu and her husband Cai Changchun, director of the hepatobiliary and pancreatic surgery department of the hospital, had been working at the frontline since the outbreak, according to media reports. 

Doctor Li Wenliang. File Photo: Cui Meng/GT

 
After Li Wenliang, who worked at the ophthalmology department of the hospital, passed away on February 7, his colleague Mei Zhongming, a 57-year-old eye doctor, died on March 3 due to COVID-19 infection, according to earlier reports. 

Jiang Xueqing, aged 55, a doctor from the thyroid and breast surgery department of the hospital, died from the coronavirus on March 1.

In addition, Zhu Heping, who was also a colleague of Li and an expert who was invited back to work after he had retired, died of COVID-19 on March 8. 

According to Caixin, more than 230 medical staff at the hospital, which has more than 4,000 employees, contracted the coronavirus, and the death toll was the highest among Wuhan hospitals due to its location near the Huanan Seafood Market, where the first outbreak in the city occurred. The hospital had also received a large number of patients at the early stages of the outbreak. 

More than 3,000 medical staff in Central China's Hubei Province have been infected since the outbreak, of which 40 percent occurred in hospitals and 60 percent in communities, according to official data released earlier in March. 

Wuhan police on Thursday revoked the reprimand order against Li Wenliang, the "whistleblower" doctor in Wuhan who died from COVID-19, and two police officers involved in the handling of Li's case were penalized for dereliction of duty, following the recommendations of a closely watched investigation by China's top supervisory body.

On December 30, 2019, Li Wenliang shared the message of "seven cases of SARS were confirmed in the Huanan seafood market" and "the patients were isolated in the emergency department in our hospital" in his WeChat group. 
Li was later reprimanded by local police on January 3 for spreading "rumors" about the outbreak of the virus.