It's happened with outbreaks going back for centuries: First comes the disease. Then the scapegoating. Here's why:
Whether it's Ebola, cholera and now COVID-19, Jesse Verschuere has witnessed"a pattern of stigma against others in every disease outbreak" he has responded to as part of the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders.
The objects of prejudice have included health-care workers, minorities, immigrants, indeed any outsider or other who looks or acts different from those in the local community, says the Belgium-basedVillainizing an unknown other as guilty of spreading, causing or exploiting disease has a long, hate-filled history, says Debora MacKenzie, author of the new bookBack in 14th-century Europe, Jews were blamed — and thousands of them slaughtered — by Christian mobs who baselessly accused them of...
So perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that in the wake of COVID-19, the blame game is playing out once again.In the United States, where some leaders have used the racist term"Kung flu" to describe COVID-19, increased verbal and physical assaults against Asian Americans have been linked to the virus.
In Haiti, medical workers are often distrusted and ostracized. According to reports from Doctors Without Borders, one pervasive myth is that hospital patients who seek help for COVID-19 will instead receive a fatal injection. The more people who die, it's alleged, the more money the government will receive as part of a corrupt ploy to exploit unsuspecting citizens.
In Malaysia, authorities have used COVID-19 as a pretext to target — and exacerbate prejudice against — immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers and the Rohingya community, says Doctors Without Borders head of mission. Immigration raids purportedly aimed at stopping the spread of the disease by these groups coming from outside the country in fact ended up sparking new disease clusters in the overcrowded detention centers where the detainees were sent.
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