Ever since the outbreak of the coronavirus, the disease has been considered a global threat, covering headlines over media across the world. Coronavirus is a large family virus that has respiratory symptoms such as fever, cough, and breathing difficulties. The novel coronavirus started to spread from Wuhan, China, in December of 2019. So far, there are 40,628 coronavirus cases and 910 confirmed deaths, mostly from China. As the number of people with the disease rises, the World Health Organization has declared a Public Health Emergency.
The Coronavirus takes on two forms in its spread: the physical virus and the social virus. Each of these forms express a rampant virality that utilizes a multiplicity of connecting contagious points in a network of disease. For the physical disease, each point is a biological form, with the ability to become diseased, and to spread disease. For the social disease, each point has similar qualities but is heavily expedited, and each point instead of being biological is a social form. The social form has infinite communicativity, it can spread the social disease by forming numerous connections.
The problem with the social disease is that it is the racist contagion, the idea of association between the Asian body and the Coronavirus, the harmful discourse that submerges the Asian body in the concept of the virus and ties it to the virus, an inextricable connection. The more people spread the idea of the Asian body and Coronavirus being associated, the more this social disease spreads, and infects relations with Asian people wherever the social disease is present. Mass media and fearmongering only exacerbates this issue, it makes the disease spread faster.
The Coronavirus is once again reviving the stereotypical ideas of the unsanitary Chinese barbarism. Although the origins to the Coronavirus still remain unclear, major media publications including the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Wall Street Journal hastedly tied the “wet markets,” the meat markets in Wuhan as the likely source of the virus. Many Westerners are blaming the eating habits of Chinese people, calling meat other than pork, beef, or chicken “wild animals”' and exotic. The idea of barbarism ties not only the eating habits of the Chinese, but also the whole Chinese culture as dirty and uncivilized. Because they are disease spreaders, their differences are unacceptable. This is the view of many outside of China. Many Westerners are degrading a whole culture of one nation, with other Asian countries that contain the similar Asianess in their own unique cultures.
The chances of getting infected by coronavirus outside of China are very low. Less than 100 of the confirmed infections have been found in countries outside of Asia, 12 cases in U.S., with no deaths reported outside the mainland China, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. However, instead of researching the symptoms and taking precautions, more and more people are taking actions to “protect” themselves by shielding under implicit biases. The result? A 60-year-old Chinese man was left to die on the streets of Sydney, Australia, when he fell from a fatal heart attack because people refused to give a Chinese man CPR. A lot of us should be worried more about the dangerous level of racism and hatred towards the culture of an entire group of people, than the virus itself.
The Coronavirus takes on two forms in its spread: the physical virus and the social virus. Each of these forms express a rampant virality that utilizes a multiplicity of connecting contagious points in a network of disease. For the physical disease, each point is a biological form, with the ability to become diseased, and to spread disease. For the social disease, each point has similar qualities but is heavily expedited, and each point instead of being biological is a social form. The social form has infinite communicativity, it can spread the social disease by forming numerous connections.
The problem with the social disease is that it is the racist contagion, the idea of association between the Asian body and the Coronavirus, the harmful discourse that submerges the Asian body in the concept of the virus and ties it to the virus, an inextricable connection. The more people spread the idea of the Asian body and Coronavirus being associated, the more this social disease spreads, and infects relations with Asian people wherever the social disease is present. Mass media and fearmongering only exacerbates this issue, it makes the disease spread faster.
The Coronavirus is once again reviving the stereotypical ideas of the unsanitary Chinese barbarism. Although the origins to the Coronavirus still remain unclear, major media publications including the New York Times, the Guardian, and the Wall Street Journal hastedly tied the “wet markets,” the meat markets in Wuhan as the likely source of the virus. Many Westerners are blaming the eating habits of Chinese people, calling meat other than pork, beef, or chicken “wild animals”' and exotic. The idea of barbarism ties not only the eating habits of the Chinese, but also the whole Chinese culture as dirty and uncivilized. Because they are disease spreaders, their differences are unacceptable. This is the view of many outside of China. Many Westerners are degrading a whole culture of one nation, with other Asian countries that contain the similar Asianess in their own unique cultures.
The chances of getting infected by coronavirus outside of China are very low. Less than 100 of the confirmed infections have been found in countries outside of Asia, 12 cases in U.S., with no deaths reported outside the mainland China, Hong Kong, and the Philippines. However, instead of researching the symptoms and taking precautions, more and more people are taking actions to “protect” themselves by shielding under implicit biases. The result? A 60-year-old Chinese man was left to die on the streets of Sydney, Australia, when he fell from a fatal heart attack because people refused to give a Chinese man CPR. A lot of us should be worried more about the dangerous level of racism and hatred towards the culture of an entire group of people, than the virus itself.