Li Lanjuan Photo: Cui Meng/GT

 
Top Chinese epidemiologist Li Lanjuan said in a statement that a description of her in the British journal Nature's list of the top 10 scientific figures of 2020 as the "lockdown architect" to stanch the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan city does not conform to the facts, and she hoped the journal can correct it. 

Li, director of China's State Key  Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infections, was included on Nature's list of the top 10 people who "helped shape science" in 2020, which was published on December 15, 2020. She was described as the "lockdown architect" who "advised shutting down Wuhan to control the earliest COVID-19 outbreak."

Li said in her statement that she joined a high-level group of experts as an infectious disease expert and participated in the epidemiological investigation and patient treatment work in Wuhan, after the COVID-19 crisis broke out in the city, while Nature's description of her as Wuhan's "lockdown architect" does not conform to facts, according to reports from Xinhua News Agency on Friday. 

She said she already sent a letter to the journal and hoped that it can make a correction. 

Li is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a professor and still teaches in Zhejiang University. 

Zhang Yongzhen, a researcher from the Institute for Infectious Disease Control and Prevention of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, was also on Nature's 10-people list. 

Global Times