What’s in a Name: Why COVID-19 Should Not be Called the ‘Chinese Virus’

March 25, 2020

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In 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a series of guidelines on disease naming. They included useful practices to summarize symptoms and reduce fear. They also explicitly mentioned that diseases must not be named after locations, people, animals, or cultures. This was all done in an effort to reduce the stigma and insult related to disease naming. The WHO’s decision to emphasize improved naming practices came after the fear associated with Ebola, which was named after a river in Africa. This isn’t the first time inappropriate naming has led to an unjust reaction. While there is debate over the effectiveness of the WHO outline, which suggests that new diseases should be named according to symptoms (respiratory disease for example), patients and epidemiology (juvenile, summer for example), and well as arbitrary identifiers (alpha, beta, 1, 2, 3), it is obvious that names like swine flu may be misleading. The disease commonly called swine flu is not transmitted by pigs at all, but at the time, many countries banned pork imports or mass slaughtered the animals during the 2009 outbreak.

Badly chosen names can stigmatize people, and in the case of minorities, further marginalize them in society. Names like ‘gay related immune deficiency,’ which was the early name for AIDS promoted secrecy and homophobia. In 2003, WHO officials coined the acronym SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), partly to avoid a name like ‘Chinese flu,’ as the novel pneumonia began spreading in Asia. Ironically, it would only take a couple more years for a name like that, specifically the ‘Chinese virus,’ to resurface in public domain, this time, endorsed by the President of the United States.

I will be having a news conference today to discuss very important news from the FDA concerning the Chinese Virus!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2020

In two tweets in March, Donald Trump referred to the Coronavirus as the ‘Chinese Virus,’ and he was quickly met with a chorus of criticism pointing out the potentially dangerous and racist emphasis of the Tweet. While it is true that COVID-19 began in China, it is not at the blame of the Chinese people or their country. Yet, some people seem to see it that way. Trump’s sturdiness to refer to Coronavirus by this name is floating on top of a wave of increased xenophobia and racism.

It’s not racist at all. It comes from China, that’s why,

explained Trump. The term however, has angered a wide variety of experts and Chinese officials, looking towards the increasing tension between the two countries.

The use of this term is not only corrosive vis-à-vis a global audience, including here at home, it is also fuelling a narrative in China about a broader American hatred and fear of not just the Chinese Communist Party but of China and Chinese people in general,

said Scott Kennedy, a China expert at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. Trump credited a misinformation campaign for associating China so heavily to the virus. He showed concern that a campaign supported by Beijing officials was trying to source the American military for the outbreak. While the president’s concerns of that campaign are valid, President Trump and his administration have a rich and long history of statements and actions against immigration and issues of race. It’s hard to deny the racist overtones of the statement and the duality of the purpose. At Wednesday’s briefing, a reporter asked the president for his thoughts on an unnamed White House official referring to the virus as the ‘Kung Flu.’ President Trump avoided the question by claiming the Chinese officials “probably would agree” that the Coronavirus is explicitly a “Chinese” virus, though these officials have made it clear they do not.

Image result for trump chinese virus — President Donald Trump.

Public health experts, including some in Trump’s administration, have emphasized that pandemics have no singular ethnicity, by nature they are global, and association with a specific group of people is misleading and can lead to undue discrimination. However, since the outbreak in Wuhan, Trump has repeatedly viewed the virus as a foreign threat, highlighting his early decision to close borders to Chinese people. While that may turn out to be a good decision in terms of public health, the early closure emphasizes the current administration’s emphasis on racial blame. As well, Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that these measures were shallow and the lack of testing and quarantines fell short of a comprehensive approach, further articulating the core principle of these decisions: xenophobia.

The virus most likely emerged in Wuhan in November or December, and some travelers were already spreading the virus in January, before the February restrictions went into place. The arguing over which country has done less to contain the disease, America or China, has increased tensions between the two. For example, the Chinese government announced it would be expelling journalists from major news outlets in response to the Trump administration’s decision to limit the number of Chinese citizens working in the U.S. for five Chinese news outlets. Last week, Zhao Lijian, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson went as far as to say on Twitter that,

It might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan. Be transparent! Make public your data! US owe us an explanation!

Some officials within the Trump administration have privately discussed the theory that the virus emerged not from a food market in Wuhan, as many news outlets have reported, but from a nearby Chinese government laboratory. The theory was discussed by Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, an ally of Trump, on Fox news. The lack of clarity and scientific adherence, along with fear-mongering and blaming has created a uniquely toxic environment between the two countries. This toxic potion is bubbling into xenophobia at the expense of the global collaboration needed to end the pandemic.

In true Trump administration fashion, in the face of criticism their stance only strengthened. Kellyanne Conway, the counselor to the president, said that Trump’s purpose was accuracy. The Republican of Iowa, Senator Charle E. Grassley, said,

I don’t understand why China gets upset bc we refer to the virus that originated there the ‘Chinese virus’ Spain never got upset when we referred to the Spanish flu in 1918 & 1919.

This comment identifies the exact problem of naming diseases after places. The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention says that experts are actually unsure of where the disease originated. While we may know the origin of COVID-19, we are living in a vastly different time than 100 years ago. This specific language however, didn’t end in Tweets or statements. In the Trump-Pence 2020 re-election campaign, the website pushed for blame to be placed on Beijing for the spread of the virus.

America is under attack — not just by an invisible virus, but by the Chinese,

said the campaign appeal. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo referred to the Coronavirus as the “Wuhan virus” six times in last week’s press briefing. This specific name looked quite odd juxtaposed with his statement that

now is not the time for recrimination.

This was followed again by accusation, this time towards China’s initial downplay of the threat, which is now a global pandemic.

With these examples of language rooted in concepts of xenophobia as high as the president, what does it mean to be Chinese in America, or anywhere else for that matter? Frankly, the bigoted blame that has placed Coronavirus on all Chinese peoples and the president’s label of the “Chinese virus” has made many Chinese-Americans terrified. The New York Times reported on Yuanyuan Zhu who fell victim as a result of this mentality. She was walking to her gym on March 9, thinking that this was likely going to be her last workout for a while, when she noticed a man yelling at her. Zhu remembered that as bus passed, he screamed after it,

Run them over.

Zhu tried to keep her distance, but she was stuck waiting with him at the crosswalk when the light changed. She could feel a cold stare, and then, his saliva hit her face.

That person didn’t look strange or angry or anything, you know? He just looked like a normal person.

Around the world, Chinese immigrants are facing two threats: the Coronavirus itself and the misplaced hate and excused racism that followed it. There is growing concern against verbal and physical attacks, including against other Asian groups, with families from Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, and others, facing the same, xenophobic backlash. The bigotry is blind and dangerous. Over the past two weeks, two dozen Asian-Americans in interviews said they were afraid; grocery shopping, travelling on public transit, and letting their children play outside is a risk. Many described an onslaught of hate, seemingly supported by the Trump administration through their intolerant language that Asian-Americans say is inciting racist attacks. Recently, Trump tweeted,

It is very important that we totally protect our Asian American community in the United States.

Trump did not however, condemn the use of names that fear-monger at the expense of specific ethnic groups, putting them at risk. No firm numbers exist yet, but Asian-American advocacy groups and researchers have already seen a surge of assaults reported in the media and through tip lines. Between February 9 and March 7, San Francisco State University found a 50% rise in news articles related to Coronavirus and anti-Asian discrimination. The lead researcher, Russel Jeung, said these numbers represent a small fraction of the cases, possibly only highlighting the most tame ones. Professor Jeung helped set up a website in six Asian languages to gather firsthand accounts. Over 150 cases has been reported since the recent start of the website.

It isn’t always as obvious as verbal or physical abuse. The detriment of collective blame is that it leads to both small and large manifestations of fear. In the recent weeks, Chinese food restaurants have seen a steep decline in their customer base, likely related to the fear that is associated with Chinese people at this time. Many have reported people trying to cover their nose and mouth with their shirts whenever they pass a Chinese person, or really, any Asian person. For some, this is the first time in years where people are scared to go outside, not just because of the virus, but the deadly fear that follows.

In the San Fernando Valley of California, a sixteen-year old Asian-American boy was attacked in school by bullies who claimed he had the Coronavirus. In New York City, a woman wearing a mask was kicked and punched in a Manhattan subway station. A man in Queens was followed to a bus station, shouted at, and then hit over the head in front of his son who is ten-years old. Chinese-Americans are opting out of wearing a mask because of the unwanted attention; at times, it can be more dangerous than the virus. This danger has led to a surge of first-time Chinese-American gun buyers in Washington, D.C. Engage Armament in Rockville saw that most gun buyers in the first two weeks of March have been Chinese, according to the owner, Andy Raymond. More than a fifth of Rockville’s residents are of Asian ethnicity, and Mr. Raymond said buyers from Korean and Vietnamese backgrounds wasn’t unusual. However, the influx of Chinese customers, particularly green card holders from mainland China, was. When one of his employees asked a woman about why she was there, she teared up.

To protect my daughter.

This is the result of language. The emphasis of blame placed on the Chinese population, regardless of their proximity to Wuhan or the disease itself, is a dangerous ingredient in a country with a president supportive of anti-immigration. Individual opinions on immigration don’t matter, the focus of Coronavirus is being taken away from quarantines, health care, and social distancing, and it is magnifying and increasing the xenophobic tendencies of people in America and across the world. It is unfair to hold one group of people accountable for a disease that appeared without intention, and it is unjust to continue that blame when it puts peoples safety on the line. Immigrants in America already face a mountain of discrimination and isolation upon arrival and settlement, abuse because of COVID-19 is salt in an already infected wound.