Xenophobia ‘Is A Pre-Existing Condition.’ How Harmful Stereotypes and Racism are Spreading Around the Coronavirus

As 10-year-old Connor and a friend played one recent day at recess, they were approached by a group of boys wanting to play a game — testing the boys for coronavirus. Connor, who is half-Chinese, and his friend, also Chinese, played along at first, but Connor’s mother Nadia Alam tells TIME that they quickly became uncomfortable and that the other boys wouldn’t stop, she says. “In this instance, I honestly don’t think the kids who targeted my son acted out of malice,” Alam said in an emailed statement to TIME. “They were acting out the fear and ignorance around them. My son was upset and angry, but he is okay. He is resilient and the kids are remorseful.” However, it is just a small example of the stereotyping of people of Asian descent that has grown as news spreads of the rising numbers of cases of the coronavirus, which originated in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Some people on social media have detailed examples of people avoiding them in public spaces, or even confronting them in public about coronavirus. “People with a different national, ethnic or religious background have historically been accused of spreading germs regardless of what the science may say,” says Monica Schoch-Spana, a medical anthropologist and a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. The 2019 Novel Coronavirus has infected more than 12,000 and has killed 259 people as of Saturday afternoon, all of whom died in Ch...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized 2019-nCoV onetime Source Type: news