Coronavirus cases and deaths are continuing to spike in the U.S. — and other hard-hit countries like Italy, where confirmed deaths from the virus have now surpassed those in China, which experienced the first major outbreak — but President Donald Trump is sticking to his racism, even as Americans suffer. Despite the virus’s presence in countries around the globe and the ongoing global cooperation in an attempt to clamp down upon it, he’s now repeatedly and pettily publicly referred to the illness as the “Chinese virus.” On Wednesday, Mike Ryan, the executive director of World Health Organization’s Emergencies Program, joined those condemning the behavior.
At a press conference, a South China Morning Post reporter asked him about the “Chinese virus” phrase usage, and he replied:
‘Viruses know no borders and they don’t care about your ethnicity, the color of your skin or how much money you have in the bank… anyone would regret profiling a virus along those lines. This is a time for solidarity, this is a time for facts, this is a time to move forward together, to fight this virus together. There is no blame in this. All we need now is to identify the things we need to do to move forward quickly, with speed and to avoid any indication of ethnic or other associations with this virus.’
Others, including at the WHO, have issued similar proclamations.
When talking about #COVID19, certain words & language may have a negative meaning for people and fuel stigmatizing attitudes https://t.co/yShiCMfYF3 #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/d54qL4LY2H
— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) March 2, 2020
Trump has been persistent with his reference to the Coronavirus as the “Chinese virus.” A photo even circulated on the internet this Thursday of some of Trump’s notes on which he’d crossed out the printed reference to the “Coronavirus” and scrawled “Chinese” in its place. None of these racist monikers have any relevance to stopping the spread of the virus in the U.S. — what, does Trump think that if he calls the Coronavirus the “Chinese virus” enough times, it’ll get spooked and vaporize? Obviously not, but that’s the level of outlandishness to which he’s sunk.
Close up of President @realDonaldTrump notes is seen where he crossed out "Corona" and replaced it with "Chinese" Virus as he speaks with his coronavirus task force today at the White House. #trump #trumpnotes pic.twitter.com/kVw9yrPPeJ
— Jabin Botsford (@jabinbotsford) March 19, 2020
He has been repeatedly confronted over his insistence on the term, but he’s insisted that it’s “not racist at all.” The problem with that argument is that he spent weeks calling it the “Coronavirus” like everybody else, but when it burst into a more inescapable political issue, he switched into his racist antagonism mode and started with the “Chinese virus” phrase.
Q: "Why do you keep calling this the Chinese Virus?"
President Trump: "It comes from China…it's not racist."
Full video here: https://t.co/GwQnJ0pwmo pic.twitter.com/L1dD05z4RK
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 18, 2020
It’s far from the only issue with the Coronavirus response from the president and his team, although he might like it as a distraction. Trump has claimed recently that he’s always taken the Coronavirus outbreak seriously, and he even insisted that he knew it was or would be a pandemic before the declaration to that effect from the World Health Organization — but in reality, in past weeks, he’s repeatedly veered between calling concern over the virus a “hoax” and insisting, in contrast to the evidence, that it would soon be gone from the U.S.
Now, the U.S. has reached the point of over 2,300 newly reported cases within just the last 12-18 hours or so, which brings the country’s total to over 11,500 and counting. The Trump administration has proposed a stimulus package valued at around $1 trillion to help offset the economic upheaval from attempts to stem the virus’s spread.
