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This is the last installment of WIRED’s Coronavirus Update until the New Year. Happy holidays, stay safe, and we’ll see you in 2021!State officials tackle vaccine logistics, the FDA authorizes an over-the-counter test, and Congress nears a stimulus bill agreement. Here’s what you should know:
State officials work on vaccine logistics as health care workers and the elderly start receiving shots
On Monday, health care workers across the US began receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for Covid-19. For the next few weeks, hospitals will focus on inoculating their employees, and pharmacy chains will take care of nursing home residents. State officials are also beginning to iron out many of the logistical issues they will have to contend with once they begin vaccinating the general public, likely in February or March. These include everything from how to handle the delicate vaccine to readying kits to tracking and scheduling vaccinations.
On Tuesday the FDA granted an emergency use authorization to the first at-home rapid coronavirus test. The test, which was developed by the Australian company Ellume, will cost around $30, does not require a prescription, and can be used by anyone older than 2. Nasal swab samples don’t need to be sent to a lab, but users are required to download an app that automatically sends test data by zip code to the cloud. Experts say US testing capacity should increase rapidly in the next two to three months as more new tests are approved for use.
Congress is closing in on a $900 billion coronavirus relief deal that could be announced as soon as later today. The bill is expected to include a second round of stimulus checks (whose amount is still unannounced) as well as Paycheck Protection Program loans, money for vaccine distribution, and relief for hospitals. It won’t include liability protections for businesses or aid to state and local government, two of the issues that have been contentious throughout these negotiations. Lawmakers hope to pass the bill before the government shuts down on Saturday.
“Solitude is not chosen, any more than destiny is chosen. Solitude comes to us if we have within us the magic stone that attracts destiny.”
BY MARIA POPOVA (brainpickings.org)
“No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life,” the young Nietzsche wrote as he contemplated what it takes to find oneself. Somehow, this man of stark contradiction, cycling between nihilistic despondency and electric buoyancy along the rim of madness, has managed to inspire some of humanity’s most surefooted spirits — among them, the great German poet, novelist, painter, and Nobel laureate Hermann Hesse (July 2, 1877–August 9, 1962), who drew from Nietzsche’s philosophy the most humanistic ideas, then magnified them with his own transcendent humanity.
You must unlearn the habit of being someone else or nothing at all, of imitating the voices of others and mistaking the faces of others for your own.
[…]
One thing is given to man which makes him into a god, which reminds him that he is a god: to know destiny.
[…]
When destiny comes to a man from outside, it lays him low, just as an arrow lays a deer low. When destiny comes to a man from within, from his innermost being, it makes him strong, it makes him into a god… A man who has recognized his destiny never tries to change it. The endeavor to change destiny is a childish pursuit that makes men quarrel and kill one another… All sorrow, poison, and death are alien, imposed destiny. But every true act, everything that is good and joyful and fruitful on earth, is lived destiny, destiny that has become self.
Might your bitter pain not be the voice of destiny, might that voice not become sweet once you understand it?
[…]
Action and suffering, which together make up our lives, are a whole; they are one. A child suffers its begetting, it suffers its birth, its weaning; it suffers here and suffers there until in the end it suffers death. But all the good in a man, for which he is praised or loved, is merely good suffering, the right kind, the living kind of suffering, a suffering to the full. The ability to suffer well is more than half of life — indeed, it is all life. Birth is suffering, growth is suffering, the seed suffers the earth, the root suffers the rain, the bud suffers its flowering.
In the same way, my friends, man suffers destiny. Destiny is earth, it is rain and growth. Destiny hurts.
Long before Simone Weil contemplated how to make use of our suffering, Hesse holds up hardship as “the forge of destiny” and adds:
It is hard to learn to suffer. Women succeed more often and more nobly than men. Learn from them! Learn to listen when the voice of life speaks! Learn to look when the sun of destiny plays with your shadows! Learn to respect life! Learn to respect yourselves! From suffering springs strength…
Writing fifteen years after he made his exquisite case for breaking the trance of busyness, Hesse returns to the sandbox of selfhood — solitude:
True action, good and radiant action, my friends, does not spring from activity, from busy bustling, it does not spring from industrious hammering. It grows in the solitude of the mountains, it grows on the summits where silence and danger dwell. It grows out of the suffering which you have not yet learned to suffer.
[…]
Solitude is the path over which destiny endeavors to lead man to himself. Solitude is the path that men most fear. A path fraught with terrors, where snakes and toads lie in wait… Without solitude there is no suffering, without solitude there is no heroism. But the solitude I have in mind is not the solitude of the blithe poets or of the theater, where the fountain bubbles so sweetly at the mouth of the hermit’s cave.
Photograph by Maria Popova
Learning to be nourished by solitude rather than defeated by it, Hesse argues, is a prerequisite for taking charge of our destiny:
Most men, the herd, have never tasted solitude. They leave father and mother, but only to crawl to a wife and quietly succumb to new warmth and new ties. They are never alone, they never commune with themselves. And when a solitary man crosses their path, they fear him and hate him like the plague; they fling stones at him and find no peace until they are far away from him. The air around him smells of stars, of cold stellar spaces; he lacks the soft warm fragrance of the home and hatchery.
[…]
A man must be indifferent to the possibility of falling, if he wants to taste of solitude and to face up to his own destiny. It is easier and sweeter to walk with a people, with a multitude — even through misery. It is easier and more comforting to devote oneself to the “tasks” of the day, the tasks meted out by the collectivity.
In a sentiment the poet May Sarton would echo in her stunning ode to solitude two decades later, Hesse adds:
Solitude is not chosen, any more than destiny is chosen. Solitude comes to us if we have within us the magic stone that attracts destiny.
Blessed be he who has found his solitude, not the solitude pictured in painting or poetry, but his own, unique, predestined solitude. Blessed be he who knows how to suffer! Blessed be he who bears the magic stone in his heart. To him comes destiny, from him comes authentic action.
You were made to be yourselves. You were made to enrich the world with a sound, a tone, a shadow.
[…]
In each one of you there is a hidden being, still in the deep sleep of childhood. Bring it to life! In each one of you there is a call, a will, an impulse of nature, an impulse toward the future, the new, the higher. Let it mature, let it resound, nurture it! Your future is not this or that; it is not money or power, it is not wisdom or success at your trade — your future, your hard dangerous path is this: to mature and to find God in yourselves.
“No one can build you the bridge on which you, and only you, must cross the river of life,”wrote the thirty-year-old Nietzsche. “The true and durable path into and through experience,” Nobel-winning poet Seamus Heaney counseled the young more than a century later in his magnificent commencement address, “involves being true … to your own solitude, true to your own secret knowledge.”
Every generation believes that it must battle unprecedented pressures of conformity; that it must fight harder than any previous generation to protect that secret knowledge from which our integrity of selfhood springs. Some of this belief stems from the habitual conceit of a culture blinded by its own presentism bias, ignorant of the past’s contextual analogues. But much of it in the century and a half since Nietzsche, and especially in the years since Heaney, is an accurate reflection of the conditions we have created and continually reinforce in our present informational ecosystem — a Pavlovian system of constant feedback, in which the easiest and commonest opinions are most readily rewarded, and dissenting voices are most readily punished by the unthinking mob.
Few people in the two centuries since Emerson issued his exhortation to “trust thyself” have countered this culturally condoned blunting of individuality more courageously and consistently than E.E. Cummings (October 14, 1894–September 3, 1962) — an artist who never cowered from being his unconventional self because, in the words of his most incisive and competent biographer, he “despised fear, and his life was lived in defiance of all who ruled by it.”
A fortnight after the poet’s fifty-ninth birthday, a small Michigan newspaper published a short, enormous piece by Cummings under the title “A Poet’s Advice to Students,” radiating expansive wisdom on art, life, and the courage of being yourself. It went on to inspire Buckminster Fuller and was later included in E.E. Cummings: A Miscellany Revised (public library) — that wonderful out-of-print collection which the poet himself described as “a cluster of epigrams, forty-nine essays on various subjects, a poem dispraising dogmata, and several selections from unfinished plays,” and which gave us Cummings on what it really means to be an artist.
Illustration from Enormous Smallness by Matthew Burgess, an illustrated tribute to E.E. Cummings
A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.
This may sound easy. It isn’t.
A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.
To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
Cummings should know — just four years earlier, he had fought that hardest battle himself: When he was awarded the prestigious Academy of American Poets annual fellowship — the MacArthur of poetry — Cummings had to withstand harsh criticism from traditionalists who besieged him with hate for the bravery of breaking with tradition and being nobody-but-himself in his art. With an eye to that unassailable creative integrity buoyed by relentless work ethic, he adds:
As for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn’t a poet can possibly imagine. Why? Because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time — and whenever we do it, we’re not poets.
If, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you’ve written one line of one poem, you’ll be very lucky indeed.
And so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world — unless you’re not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
Backed by research and personal anecdotes, Spanish professor Anna Babel reveals the intricate relationship between language and culture, showing how social categories and underlying biases influence the way we hear, regard and, ultimately, judge each other. A talk that will leave you questioning your assumptions about what it really means to speak a language.
This talk was presented to a local audience at TEDxOhioStateUniversity, an independent event. TED’s editors chose to feature it for you.
The government has secured another two vaccines, enough for every New Zealander and its Pacific partners, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says.
Watch the update here:
The additional vaccines being pre-purchased are from pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca and Novavax.
A total of 7.6 million doses will come from AstraZeneca – enough for 3.8 million people, and 10.72 million doses from Novavax – enough for 5.36 million people. Both vaccines require two doses to be administered.
The government already has to pre-purchase agreements for 750,000 courses from Pfizer/BioNTech and 5 million from Janssen.
The cost of the new pre-purchase agreements was not disclosed, but the vaccines will be free to New Zealanders, the government said.
Ardern said the new agreements means the government will now have three different types of vaccine technology available to it in case some are found to be unsuccessful.
She said if the vaccines are proven to be safe and effective by Medsafe, then the government’s first priority will be to vaccinate border workers, essential staff and their household contacts.
“We expect vaccines to be delivered to our front line workers in the second quarter of 2021,” she said.
“Our aim is to then commence vaccination of the general public in the second half of the year. All vaccine roll out will be dependent on Medsafe sign off and speed of manufacture.”
Minister of Health Andrew Little said Medsafe has made changes to its vaccine approval processes to make it faster.
He said Medsafe has agreed to allow pharmaceutical companies to make rolling applications for their Covid-19 vaccines, which means they may submit their data as it is completed and ready for assessment to speed up the process.
“Pfizer and BioNTech and Janssen have already started to submit data, and timing around Medsafe’s approval process depends on many factors, such as the data that companies provide and whether it meets internationally agreed criteria for safety and efficacy.
“Medsafe has streamlined its assessment processes and is prioritising the assessment of Covid-19 vaccines over other pharmaceuticals to obtain a vaccine more quickly, but there will be no compromise on the safety of the vaccine. Medsafe will remain in close contact with its Australian counterpart throughout,” Little said.
Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said work is underway to make sure the rollout is successful.
“New Zealand has never before attempted an immunisation programme of this scale and complexity,” he said.
“Workforce planning to ensure we have enough vaccinators is well advanced. There are around 12,000 health professionals already able to administer vaccines and more will be trained.
“And, as part of the new National Immunisation Solution, the Ministry of Health will have an inventory management system for Covid-19 vaccines with accurate information about where they are located and the temperature in central storage facilities.
“This will enable us to track and trace Covid-19 vaccines and consumables, including their expiry dates, to reduce wastage.”
The government has also purchased nine freezers that can store more than 1.5 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. They are due to arrive in the country by the end of the month, he said.
Hipkins reiterated that the immunisation programme does not mean the border will open immediately.
“Our border remains the first line of defence against Covid-19 from imported cases. To make any decisions around borders we need to be confident that the New Zealand population is sufficiently protected.
“It means we will need information on whether the Covid-19 vaccines are effective at providing individuals with protection from contracting the virus and reducing transmission – and a gradual building towards population immunity, which will take time.”
Government to provide $75m in support for Pacific partners
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced that the government is preparing to support its Pacific partners to access Covid-19 vaccines.
Mahuta confirmed $75 million of Official Development Assistance had been earmarked to support Pacific and global vaccine access and roll-out.
“New Zealand is pursuing a portfolio of potential Covid-19 vaccines to ensure we have flexibility and choice in the fast-moving global marketplace. We want to make sure Pacific countries can also access suitable options, and have the support they need to run successful immunisation campaigns.”
She said New Zealand’s approach will be to purchase sufficient vaccines to cover the Realm of New Zealand (Tokelau, Niue, Cook Islands) and its Polynesian neighbours Samoa, Tonga and Tuvalu should their governments wish to take these up.
Included in the $75m support package, New Zealand plans to make a further $10m contribution to the COVAX Facility Advance Market Commitment, which is the key multilateral mechanism that has emerged to support equitable global access. New Zealand is also ready to contribute to wider Pacific regional initiatives as they take shape.
I was thinking about Gurdjieff’s quote on all knowing and tying it into Lao Tzu’s thinking.
“To know means to know all. Not to know all means not to know. In order to know all, it is only necessary to know a little. But, in order to know this little, it is first necessary to know pretty much.” ― G. I. Gurdjieff
“A journey of a thousand li starts with a single step.” ― Lao Tzu
Lao Tzu
Each life is an immeasurable journey that begins with the first step. The destination of this journey is the all knowing. All knowing is obscured by the many things. One begins the journey by letting go of the many things.
Thane taught us “pretty much”. Thane taught us to see into the illusion and dissolve the lies that tie us to our troubling experiences. He taught us how to let go of the many things.
As we learn to let go of the many things we will find ourselves standing on the threshold of knowing all, and in this simple all knowing we can allow ourselves to really live.
“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” ― Lao Tzu
There were 3 good arguments that Jesus was Black: 1. He called everyone brother 2. He liked Gospel 3. He didn’t get a fair trial
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Jewish: 1. He went into His Father’s business 2. He lived at home until he was 33 3. He was sure his Mother was a virgin and his Mother was sure He was God
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Italian: 1. He talked with His hands 2. He had wine with His meals 3. He used olive oil
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was a Californian: 1. He never cut His hair 2. He walked around barefoot all the time 3. He started a new religion
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was an American Indian: 1. He was at peace with nature 2. He ate a lot of fish 3. He talked about the Great Spirit
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Irish: 1. He never got married. 2. He was always telling stories. 3. He loved green pastures.
But then there were 3 equally good arguments that Jesus was Mexican: 1. He treated his mama like she was a saint. 2. He always wore llantas and a serape. 3. He was a carpenter who could fix anything.
But the most compelling evidence of all – 3 proofs that Jesus was a woman: 1. He fed a crowd at a moment’s notice when there was virtually no food 2. He kept trying to get a message across to a bunch of men who just didn’t get it 3. And even when He was dead, He had to get up because there was still work to do
Li Wenliang (Chinese: 李文亮; 12 October 1986 – 7 February 2020) was a Chinese ophthalmologist known for raising awareness of early COVID-19 infections in Wuhan. On 30 December 2019, Wuhan CDC issued emergency warnings to local hospitals about a number of mysterious pneumonia cases discovered in the city in the previous week.[2][3] On the same day, Li, who worked at Wuhan Central Hospital, received an internal diagnostic report of a suspected severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) patient from other doctors which he in turn shared with his friends. He was dubbed a whistleblower when that shared report later circulated publicly despite him requesting confidentiality from those with whom he shared the information.[4][5] Rumors of a deadly SARS outbreak subsequently spread on Chinese social media platforms, and Wuhan police summoned and admonished him for “making false comments on the Internet about unconfirmed SARS outbreak”.[4][6]
The outbreak was later confirmed not to be SARS but a new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Li returned to work and later contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, from a patient who was not known to be infected. He died from the disease on 7 February 2020, at age 33.[7][8] A subsequent Chinese official inquiry exonerated him, and the Communist Party of China formally offered a “solemn apology” to his family and revoked the admonishment of him.[9][10][11] By early June 2020, five more doctors from the Wuhan hospital, since nicknamed the “whistleblower hospital”, had died from COVID-19.[12]
Early life
Li Wenliang was born on 12 October 1986 in a Manchu family[13] in Beizhen, Jinzhou, Liaoning.[14] He attended Beizhen High School (北镇市高级中学) and graduated in 2004 with an excellent academic record. He attended Wuhan University School of Medicine as a clinical medicine student in a seven-year combined bachelor’s and master’s degree program. He joined the Communist Party of China in his second year.[15] His mentor praised him as a diligent and honest student. His college classmates said he was a basketball fan.[16]
In late December, doctors in Wuhan were puzzled by many pneumonia cases of unknown cause. On 30 December 2019, the Wuhan CDC sent out an internal memo to all Wuhan hospitals to be alerted and started an investigation into the exact cause of the pneumonia. The alert and subsequent news reports were immediately published on ProMED (a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases).[18] On the same day, Li saw a patient’s report which showed a positive result with a high confidence level for SARS coronavirus tests. The report had originated from Ai Fen, director of the emergency department at Wuhan Central hospital, who became alarmed after receiving laboratory results of a patient whom she had examined who exhibited symptoms akin to influenza resistant to conventional treatment methods. The report contained the phrase “SARS coronavirus”. Ai had circled the word “SARS”, and sent it to a doctor at another hospital in Wuhan. From there it spread throughout medical circles in the city, where it reached Li.[19] At 17:43, he wrote in a private WeChat group of his medical school classmates: “7 confirmed cases of SARS were reported [to hospital] from Huanan Seafood Market.” He also posted the patient’s examination report and CT scan image. At 18:42, he added “the latest news is, it has been confirmed that they are coronavirus infections, but the exact virus strain is being subtyped”.[4] Li asked the WeChat group members to inform their families and friends to take protective measures whilst requesting discretion from those he shared the information with; he was upset when the discussion gained a wider audience than he had hoped.[20]
After screenshots of his WeChat messages were shared on Chinese Internet and gained more attention, the supervision department of his hospital summoned him for a talk, blaming him for leaking the information.[4] On 3 January 2020, police from the Wuhan Public Security Bureau investigating the case interrogated Li, issued a formal written warning and censuring him for “publishing untrue statements about seven confirmed SARS cases at the Huanan Seafood Market”.[21] He was made to sign a letter of admonition promising not to do it again.[4] The police warned him that any recalcitrant behavior would result in a prosecution.[22]
Li returned to work at the hospital and contracted the virus on 8 January. On 31 January, he published his experience in the police station with the letter of admonition on social media. His post went viral and users questioned why the doctors who gave earlier warnings were silenced by the authorities.[which?][23]
The existence of Li’s personal blog where he documented his discoveries was reported by the Italian newspaper La Stampa on 1 February.[24] Li was already in the spotlight in the Chinese media because he was thought to be one of the eight “rumor mongers” warned by Wuhan police. However, according to some media, Wuhan police summoned eight “rumor mongers” on 1 January, while Li and Xie Linka, another doctor from Wuhan Union Hospital, were warned on 3 January, meaning that the latter two might not be part of the group.[original research?] Li later responded that he did not know whether he was one of the so-called “rumor mongers,” but that he had been admonished for claiming a SARS outbreak, which at that time was unconfirmed.[25] The police punishment of Li for “rumor mongering” was aired on China Central Television, signalling central government endorsement for the reprimand, according to two reporters for the South China Morning Post.[26]
On 4 February, the Chinese Supreme People’s Court said that the eight Wuhan citizens should not have been punished as what they said was not entirely false. It wrote on social media: “It might have been a fortunate thing if the public had believed the ‘rumors’ then and started to wear masks and carry out sanitization measures, and avoid the wild animal market.”[27]
Li told Caixin that he had been worried the hospital would punish him for “spreading rumors”, but felt relieved after the top court publicly criticized the police. “I think there should be more than one voice in a healthy society, and I don’t approve of using public power for excessive interference,” said Li.[27]
Illness and death
Coronavirus infection
On 8 January, Li contracted the coronavirus unwittingly while treating an infected patient at his hospital.[28] The patient suffered from acute angle-closure glaucoma and developed a fever the next day that Li then suspected was coronavirus-related.[23] Li developed a fever and cough two days later which soon became severe.[28] Doctor Yu Chengbo, a Zhejiang medical expert sent to Wuhan, told media that the glaucoma patient whom Li saw on 8 January was a storekeeper at Huanan Seafood Market with a high viral load, which could have exacerbated Li’s infection.[29]
On 12 January, Li was admitted to intensive care at Houhu Hospital District, Wuhan Central Hospital,[30] where he was quarantined and treated.[28] He tested positive for the virus on 30 January and formally diagnosed with the virus infection on 1 February.[23] While hospitalized, Li posted a message online vowing to return to the front lines after his recovery.[31]
Death
On 6 February, while Li was on the phone with a friend, he told the friend that his oxygen saturation had dropped to 85%.[30]Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) was reportedly used to keep him alive.[32] According to China Newsweek, his heartbeat stopped at 21:30.[32] In social media posts, the Chinese state media reported that Li had died,[33] but the posts were soon deleted.[34] Later, Wuhan Central Hospital released a statement contradicting reports of his death: “In the process of fighting the coronavirus, the eye doctor from our hospital Li Wenliang was unfortunately infected. He is now in critical condition and we are doing our best to rescue him.”[35] The hospital formally announced that Li had died at 2:58 a.m. on 7 February 2020.[7][36] During the confusion, more than 17 million people were watching the live stream for his status updates.[31]
By early June 2020, Li was the first of six doctors to die from COVID-19 in the Wuhan hospital, since nicknamed the “whistleblower hospital”.[12]Hu Weifeng, a urologist who was a coworker of Li, was the sixth doctor of the hospital to die from the virus on 2 June 2020, after four months of hospitalization.[37] The hashtag #WeWantFreedomOfSpeech (Chinese: #我们要言论自由#[38]) gained over 2 million views and over 5,500 posts within 5 hours before it was removed by the censors, as were other related hashtags and posts.[39][40][41] Wuhan citizens placed flowers and blew whistles at Wuhan Central Hospital, where Li worked and died, as a tribute to him.[42] On the Internet, people spontaneously launched the activity themed “I blew a whistle for Wuhan tonight,” where everyone kept all the lights off in their homes for five minutes, and later blew whistles and waved glitter outside of their windows for five minutes to mourn Li.[43][44] Many people left messages in response to Li’s last post on Sina Weibo, some lamenting his death and expressing anger at the authorities. He was also proclaimed an “ordinary hero”.[20] The World Health Organization posted on Twitter saying that it was “deeply saddened by the passing of Dr Li Wenliang” and “we all need to celebrate work that he did on #2019nCoV”.[45]
Although there was no official apology from the city of Wuhan for reprimanding Li, the Wuhan municipal government and the Health Commission of Hubei made statements of tribute to Li and condolences to his family. Beyond Wuhan, the National Health Commission did likewise.[20] China’s highest anti-corruption body, the National Supervisory Commission, has initiated a “comprehensive investigation” into the issues involving Li.[26] Qin Qianhong, a law professor at Wuhan University expressed his concern that, unless properly managed, public anger over Li’s death could explode in a similar way as the death of Hu Yaobang.[26][46]
A group of Chinese academics, led by Tang Yiming – head of the school of Chinese classics at Central China Normal University in Wuhan – published an open letter urging the government to both protect free speech and apologize for Li’s death. The letter emphasized the right to free speech, ostensibly guaranteed by the Chinese constitution. Tang said that the viral outbreak was a man-made disaster, and that China ought to learn from Li Wenliang. Tang also wrote he felt that senior intellectuals and academics must speak up for the Chinese people and for their own consciences. “We all should reflect on ourselves”, he wrote, “and the officials should rue their mistakes even more.”[26] The letter alleges that Li Wenliang “is also a victim of speech suppression.”[47][48] Jie Qiao, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and President of Peking University Third Hospital in Beijing called Li a “whistle-blower dedicating his young life in the front line”.[49][50]
On 7 February 2020, Taiwanese author Yan Zeya (顏擇雅) expressed doubt on the Liberty Times about whether Li should be called a whistleblower, citing his lack of general objection to the government and lack of willingness to expose its dark side.[51]
On 9 February 2020, hundreds of people in New York commemorated Li in a tribute at Central Park.[52] The U.S. Senate honored Li by passing a resolution calling for transparency and cooperation from the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Communist Party of China.[53]
Li has been officially honored by the Chinese government as a “martyr”, which is the highest honor the government can bestow on a citizen who dies from serving China.[54] According to the state-run Xinhua News Agency, he was honored together with 13 other “martyrs”, mostly physicians, who died from COVID-19.[55] Chinese Internet users have left more than 870,000 comments under Li’s last post on social website Sina Weibo since his death.[56]
On 3 March, International Journal of Infectious Diseases published an article, wrote “Dr Li Wenliang’s example as an astute clinician should inspire all of us to be vigilant, bold and courageous in reporting unusual clinical presentations.”[57] Italian author Francesca Cavallo wrote a children’s book titled Dr. Li and the crown-wearing virus, featuring Li’s story, to help educate children on the novel coronavirus.[58]Fortune magazine ranked Li as No.1 of the “World’s 25 Greatest Leaders: Heroes of the pandemic”.[59] On 4 May, Matt Pottinger, deputy national security adviser of US, hailed Li during a speech in Mandarin.[60]
On 7 August 2020, a U.S. band, the Retro Notes, published a tribute song and slide show to honor Li Wenliang.[61]
Personal life
When Li began showing symptoms of the coronavirus illness, he booked a hotel room to avoid the possibility of infecting his family, before being hospitalized on 12 January. Despite this precaution, his parents became infected with SARS-CoV-2, but later recovered.[1][31][49]
Li and his wife, Fu Xuejie (付雪洁), had one son, and were expecting their second child at the time of his death. On June 12, 2020, his widow gave birth to a second son.[1][49][62][63][64]
The history of the whirling dervishes begins with Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi who was born in Balkh, (now Afghanistan) between 1200 and 1207. When he was a young boy, his family left their home because of the religious and political climate, just before the invasion of Ghengis Khan. The family eventually settled in Konya, Turkey, where his father, Baha’uddin Valad, was a revered religious scholar and mystic. After his father’s death Rumi took up his father’s position as head of a medrasse (religious school).
At the age of 37 Jelaluddin met Shams Tabrisi. Upon meeting they found in each other a unique Friend of Truth (Haq Dost) who could share the depth of the other’s spiritual realization. They would retire into seclusion for long periods of time to have sohbet, a spiritual dialogue in the state of intoxication in the love of God. Their spiritual love and the exclusion of all of Rumi’s students and friends caused jealousy amongst them. Shams, feeling the animosity, left Konya and went to Damascus, only to be summoned back by Rumi. Finally Shams disappeared forever, some believing that Rumi’s students killed him.
It was Shams who introduced Rumi to music, poetry and turning as a form of mystical absorption in the divine. When Shams disappeared, it opened the gates of Mevlana’s heart and a pouring of verse would not cease until his death in 1275. His poetry is as alive and pertinent today as it was over 725 years ago. His six volume Mathnawi is considered a divinely inspired book. His four other books are also examples of moving, passionate and profoundly deep verse.
Poetry, music and dance, in the name of God, were the only things he could do to express this ocean of love Shams had opened in him. His intimacy with the Beloved evoked joy and gratitude in his followers as they gathered for music, sacred chanting and the famous whirling dance.
Years after his death, his son, Sultan Valad, founded the Mevlevi Order, sometimes known as the Whirling Dervishes. The Sema dance, the sacred Sufi practice of whirling or meditative turning, has been passed down for over seven hundred years, as have the music, zikr (sacred chanting), poetry, and the etiquette of this tradition.
Women and men alike were in the Order and whirled together for three hundred years after Rumi’s death. Finally, after more than four hundred years, men and women are again participating in the Sema together.
Postneshin Suleyman Hayati Dede was the Sheikh (elder or teacher) of Konya until his death in 1985. His son, Jelaluddin Loras, was born in the derga or spiritual center, literally on the other side of the wall of Rumi’s tomb. Raised in this house next to Rumi’s tomb, Jelaluddin was prepared since he was a young boy to exemplify, embody, and one day to carry the message and method of Rumi to America. In 1979 Dede sent his son to be the spiritual head and founder of the Mevlevi Order of America. Jelaluddin’s mission was to fulfill his father’s dream, to allow those who wish to once again freely practice the way of Rumi.
Postneshin Jelaluddin Loras (affectionately called Efendi) officially founded the Mevlevi Order of America in 1980 to serve followers in both the United States and Canada. Since that time he has traveled extensively, working with students of all paths and places. Under his direction, Semazens (those trained in the meditative whirling dance) were given the unique permission to perform the ritual of Sema (whirling prayer) in Konya, Turkey in 1994 and 1997 at the tomb of Rumi, a sacred site to many pilgrims worldwide. He continues to follow the direction and the fulfillment of the vision of Postneshin Suleyman Dede and welcomes all to the wonder and mystery of the Mevlevi way.
Jelaluddin Loras maintains residence in both Hawaii and Konya, Turkey, traveling throughout the United States and Europe in service of the Sufi path of Love. In 1982 he gave permission to Khadija Radin to teach the Mevlevi turn. Now, more than twenty years later, Jelaluddin and Khadija work together to bring the Mevlevi way to New York.
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
(thepoetryexchange.co.uk)
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A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.
