a top doctor in ChinaThe fight against the coronavirus is under scrutiny for plagiarism, weeks after social media posts questioned the country’s zero-tolerance strategy to control the pandemic.
Beijing has based its success in rooting out a virus that first emerged in the central city wuhan In late 2019, however, was nearly extinguished through stringent lockdowns, closed borders and massive test and trace campaigns.
But the Delta variant has cracked China’s defence, with record local infections in dozens of cities – though still in small numbers – prompting officials to reimpose travel restrictions, mass testing and hyperlocal lockdowns.
Zhang Wenhong, a prominent doctor described by state media as “China’s Fauci” after top US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, has said countries will have to find a way to “learn to live with it”.
“The way China chooses in the future … will help establish communication with the world and return to normal life, while protecting citizens from fear of the virus,” Zhang wrote on China’s Twitter-like Weibo on July 29.
Chen’s suggestion of a softer approach to virus control has angered nationalists chasing China’s social media.
Zhang accuses herself of “wandering for foreign ideas” while an apparent witch hunt is targeting her academic credentials.
Posts on Weibo accused Zhang of plagiarizing his doctoral thesis published two decades ago.
On Sunday, Fudan University in Shanghai said it was “aware of online criticism and had launched an investigation into the degree awarded to Zhang in 2000.”
Zhang did not respond to AFP’s inquiries on the investigation.
Academics and scientists have rallied around Zhang in a country where all non-state sanctioned information related to the pandemic is highly sensitive and drives arrests and slander campaigns on social media.
“Who would dare to speak and act according to his professional judgment in the future?” Yan Feng of Fudan’s Department of Chinese Literature said on Weibo.
In a sign of the risks, a teacher in eastern China’s Xianxi province was detained by police for 15 days after last week commented on a news article that said the country could “coexist with the coronavirus”. may, as per a local government notice.
China has reported 94,430 cases and 4,636 deaths almost unchanged for a year since the virus first emerged in Wuhan.
But a recent fire at an airport in Nanjing has spread to 18 provinces, infecting 1,300 people in two months – although only 13 domestic transmissions were reported on Monday.
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