Internet users have been urged to respect the privacy of COVID-19 patients, after a patient's recent experience stirred heated debate both online and offline.

During his visit to Chengdu on Wednesday, Peng Qinghua, Party secretary of Sichuan province, requested that attention should be paid to the protection of patients' privacy and cyberviolence should be stopped so that a good atmosphere can be nurtured in the prevention and control of COVID-19.

Chengdu's Public Security Bureau called on people using the internet to express their opinions in a polite and reasonable way. Slander, spreading rumors or infringing upon other people's rights will be punished according to laws, it said.

A 20-year-old female patient surnamed Zhao, the granddaughter of an elderly couple confirmed as being infected on Monday, has had personal information exposed on the internet amid claims that she had continued to travel around the city, and frequented a number of public places, after it was known that other members of her family were infected.

Zhao's personal details, including her name, photos, address, mobile phone number and ID number, soon appeared online.

In response, in a post on microblogging platform Weibo on Wednesday, Zhao apologized to the residents of Chengdu and said that she cooperated with the disease prevention and control authorities to stop the virus from further spreading immediately after her infection was confirmed.

Zhao said she did not know that her grandparents had been infected and if she had known, she would not have gone out.

She said in another post on Wednesday that she had been receiving phone calls and text messages from strangers since her personal information was exposed on Tuesday. Zhao said she felt hurt by the abusive messages she received.

On Wednesday, a man surnamed Wang received administrative punishment from public security authorities in Chengdu for infringing on Zhao's privacy, according to a Weibo post on the account of the public security bureau of Chengdu's Chenghua district.

Investigations showed that the man posted Zhao's personal information on his own Weibo account.

Shi Jiayou, a law professor at Renmin University of China, said the behavior of the man and some other netizens is illegal. He added that the Civil Code of China, which has detailed stipulations on protecting personal information and privacy, will take effect on Jan 1.

A law on personal information protection is also being drafted to crack down on behavior such as this, he added.