Doctors in Wuhan, China – the initial epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak – spoke out after seeing several colleagues die from the coronavirus, criticizing hospital authorities for suppressing early warnings of the outbreak. These brave interviews angered Chinese authorities who have been trying to erase the content from the internet ever since.

In these interviews, ER doctors reported being reprimanded after alerting superiors and colleagues of a Sars-like virus first seen in patients in December 2019.

The silencing of medical professionals and suppression of critical scientific data would extend far beyond these reprisals in early January. Reports of health care workers falling ill, an early indicator of human-to-human transmission, were suppressed. More indirectly, state media coverage of doctors being penalized reportedly had a chilling effect on other medical professionals who might have sounded the alarm.

Now that the virus has claimed more than 1 million lives worldwide, including four doctors at Wuhan Central hospital, one of which was the whistleblower ophthalmologist Li Wenliang, these fearless doctors have joined other critics risking their jobs, as well as detention, to speak out about conditions in Wuhan and alert the rest of the world.