Benutzer:Partynia/Xenophobia and racism related to the 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak

Map of the 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak:

Region of origin (Mainland China)

Confirmed cases reported

Suspected cases reported

The Wuhan novel coronavirus, a new virus designated 2019-nCoV, was identified in the city of Wuhan in Hubei, China in mid-December 2019 when a group of people in Wuhan developed a pneumonia without clear causes and existing treatments were found to be ineffective. The novel coronavirus was found to have characteristics similar to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle-east Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), is contagious during the incubation period of up to 14 days when the infected may not show any symptoms, and has a fatality rate of about 2-3%. By the end of January 2020, the novel coronavirus had spread to 27 countries and regions globally, infecting almost 15,000 people and causing the death of more than 300. As the new coronavirus originated from China and more than 95% of those infected are Chinese, the epidemic caused a rise in xenophobic and anti-Chinese incidences around the world.

Context

The Wuhan novel coronavirus epidemic revived fear and concerns caused by the 2001–2003 SARS or the 2012–2013 MERS in countries that were affected by the epidemics. Like SARS, the Wuhan novel coronavirus originate from China and has a suspected origin from viruses in bats. Though not as deadly as SARS, which has a fatality rate of about 9-10%, the novel coronavirus was more contagious. Within slightly more than a month of its discovery, the novel coronavirus has overtook the total number of people infected by SARS during the eight months epidemic. Couple with the facts that vaccine for the new virus has yet to be developed, much about the new virus were known and more than 95% of the infected are Chinese, xenophobic and racist reactions to Asians and specifically Chinese began surfacing. A resident in German of Asian descent lamented, "With is reset coronavirus outbreak, it [racism against people of Asian descent] has just gotten worse.... we are basically stuck between getting ridiculed and being the recipient of disgust."

A common theme in the novel coronavirus related anti-Chinese sentiments is the stigma and stereotype of Chinese taste for bushmeat. One of the suspected source of the novel coronavirus is Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, a wet market in the heart of Wuhan that purportedly sold bushmeat that caused the first transmission of the novel coronavirus from animal to human similar to SARS.This was despite the actual cause of the novel coronovirus remained under investigation, and the medical journal The Lancet pointed out that 13 of the initial 41 known cases of infection has no link to the market and the two-week incubation period meant the virus could have spread in Wuhan before the cluster in the market. Experts have said that it is not so much about what meat is eaten, but how thoroughly it is cooked and the hygiene in the preparation of the food. Infectious disease specialist Leong Hoe Nam, who was intimately involved in the fight agains SARS in Singapore, said "The chef is at greatest risk...it is a case of right person meeting the wrong virus at the wrong time."

The stigma and anti-Chinese sentiment arising from the novel coronavirus was exacerbated by a viral video on social media showing a Chinese influencer consuming a bowl of bat soup. The video was held up a evidence of "disgusting" Chinese eating habits, though it was produced more than three years before the novel coronavirus epidemic in Palau, a Pacific island nation where bat soup is a delicacy. In an op-ed, CNN journalist Jeff Yang wrote, "Food and hygiene slander have long been the spear tip of attacks by contemptuous (or envious) Westerners seeking to make Chinese seem impossibly alien, and thus unassimilable and and inadmissible to their "civilized" countries." He continued, "Back in the turn of the 19th century, Chinese were commonly regarded as "dirty, heathen rat-eaters"; vintage ads for pest poison Rough on Rats played on this perception... by suggesting that it was nearly as effective at controlling vermin as hungry Chinese people."

Global incidences

Canada

Toronto website BlogTO noted stigma attached to Chinese food similar to what happened during the 2003 SARS outbreak. Racist comments were posted on its Instagram about a new Chinese restaurant, which some posters urged diners to avoid because "it may have bat pieces in there or whatever else they eat." Instagram users also commented on a photo of a Chinese restaurant in Toronto, making comments like "No eating bats please! That's how coronavirus started in China!" and "I ain't trine catch no virus."

Frank Ye, a student at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto told CBC Radio his Asian Canadian friends have witnessed people moving away from them or holding their mouths. His mother, a nurse at a Toronto hospital, was asked by a man for a mask because there were "just so many Chinese people around here."

Peter Akman, a reporter who was with Canada's CTV tweeted an image of his Asian barber in mask and said, "Hopefully all I got today was a haircut."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has condemned racism against Chinese Canadians during a Lunar New Year festival in Toronto.

France

French newspaper Le Courrier Picard featured an Asian woman wearing a mask on its front page on Sunday 26 January 2020 with a headline "Yellow Alert". The paper also titled an editorial "A New Yellow Peril". The publication drew condemnation from French Asians who started the hashtag #JeNeSuisPasUnVirus (transliterated to #IAmNotaVirus). One woman calling herself Forky wrote on Twitter, "Not all Asians are Chinese. Not all Chinese were born in China and not all have been there. An Asian with coughs doesn't have the #coronavirus."

Italy

La Republicca reported that the director of Rome's prestigious Santa Cecilia music conservatory, Roberto Giuliani, suspended the lessons of all "Oriental students (Chinese, Korean, Japanese etc.)" due to the epidemic, though most of the students are second-generation Italian immigrants with no relationship to their heritage countries.

Japan

In Japan, the hashtag #ChineseDon'tComeToJapan has been trending on Twitter.

A server at a restaurant in Ito, a Japanese city on a peninsular south of Tokyo, was recorded shouting at a tourist "China! Out!" A Chinese woman, who was the target of the outburst, immediately left the restaurant.

Philippines

Various Filipino-Chinese advocacy groups have warned that racism against the Chinese community has risen after the outbreak has started. The Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Inc and the Trade Union of Congress of the Philippines has condemned anti-Chinese propaganda with links to the virus. Adamson University, a prominent Catholic school in Manila received online backlash for ordering all its Chinese students to quarantine themselves amid the new coronavirus outbreak.

South Korea

Entrance to a South Korean restaurant in downtown Seoul has a sign in red Chinese characters that reads "No Chinese Allowed".

United States

In an infographic on common reactions to the novel coronavirus epidemic posted by University Health Services at the University of California, Berkeley, the school advised that "Xenophobia: fears about interacting with those who might be from Asia and guilt about these feelings" is normal.

An eight year-old boy of mixed Korean-American and Mexican, Chinese, Native American and white heritage was spotted at Costco with a mask and told by sample-stand worker to "get away because he may be from China."

See also

• Anti-Chinese sentiment in Korea
• Anti-Chinese sentiment in Japan
• Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States
• Yellow Peril