[1] On 30 December 2019, Ai Fen received a diagnostic report of suspected "Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome cases".
[2] In 1997, Ai Fen graduated from Tongji Medical College (now a part of Huazhong University of Science and Technology), and worked in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine of Wuhan Central Hospital.
[4] On 1 January 2020, Ai again reported to the hospital's public health department and medical office the news of the admission of multiple patients by a clinic owner near the South China Seafood Market, hoping to attract attention.
On the morning of 11 January, Ai received the news that Hu Ziwei, a nurse of the emergency department, had been infected.
[5] On 8 March, People's Daily published a report from Xinhua News Agency praising Ai Fen as a "heroine [who] has been standing and working hard for more than 40 days and nights".
[7][8] The official website of the China Human Care Association Hospital Humanities Committee, headed by the Chinese National Health Commission, eventually reprinted the report under the header 「如果这些医生都能够得到及时的提醒，或许就不会有这一天」 ("Had doctors been notified promptly, this day might never have come"; a quote from Ai Fen's account), and thanked the reporters.
[9] Protesting against the censorship, Chinese Internet users started to pass the article through means such as braille, emoji, morse code and seal script.
Five months after the procedure she complained that she was nearly blind in one eye with her retina having become detached, leading to a dispute with the hospital over malpractice.