4/5/2020
Yesterday I was chatting with my friends, and they told me their friends in New York still felt it was safer without wearing a mask because many other people would think that person was carrying the coronavirus for sure, and they will refuse to serve and help if that person was wearing a mask. And if it was an Asian that was wearing a mask, the situation probably will become worse since the coronavirus was originated from Asia. Wearing a mask is not shameful; it is a way to protect healthy people from getting infected as well as prevent potential virus transportation.
Moreover, it is obvious that the American government underestimated how dangerous the coronavirus can be and how fast it can spread out in the country. People and government officers didn't react seriously and immediately to this crude virus, which has led to the result of losing control of the coronavirus spreading. The latest data of infected virus cases has already gone over 330 thousand in the U.S and 120 thousand in New York during the past few weeks. I'm afraid the number of infected cases will keep going up before the successful vaccine can be produced since multiple steps and experiments must be conducted such as vaccine trials, monitoring side-effects and results, and getting licenses and approval (Plotkin et al., 2017).
Many doctors and nurses no matter they are Asian, African, nor Latino are still fighting against the virus with insufficient medical supplements and protecting coverages. This is really not a good time to raise a race problem that will disappoint them and other hard-working people.
However, President Trump used the "Chinese virus" several times on his twitter. He even believed this virus would disappear at some time point like a miracle. I hope his wish would come true; I was guessing the purpose of using the wrong word instead of the coronavirus. Does he want to transfer people's attention to the failure of controlling the virus to the social problems of racism? How many people really believed in their President? In addition, among those people, what are their educational backgrounds and financial income?
When I was trying to find some visual data, I found many memes that describe China in a rude way. People who saw those memes can easily consider China, Chinese people, Chinese products, and other Asians as a big aggregation of viruses. Memes about coronavirus also showed the fact that some people have very limited information and knowledge about the virus, and I felt very uncomfortable about those memes.
Reference
Plotkin, S., Robinson, J. M., Cunningham, G., Iqbal, R., & Larsen, S. (2017, July 24). The complexity and cost of vaccine manufacturing - An overview. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5518734/
Pictures from:
Smith, M., Yourish, K., Almukhtar, S., Collins, K., Ivory, D., Mccann, A., … Harmon, A. (2020, March 3). Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
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