The modern society is faced with a lot of
events both natural and manmade that undermine social existence. Interestingly,
the phases of globalization have significant implication for international
wellbeing and by no small measure, the health dimension is becoming even more
worrisome.
The latter condition has called to question socio-cultural
interaction about health and illness behaviour around the world. While there
has been a history of a clear globalization of disease as was the case with the
Ebola and SARS viruses, the recent epidemiological character of the Corona
Virus portends a unique kind of threat to world health. Obviously, the corona virus pandemic
of contemporary time is not only an ominous global health challenge but a very
crucial sociological problem especially when we consider the adverse impact it
now has on social relationship and social life in general. Between the month of
December 2019 and early 2020 the outbreak of corona virus has become the
current public health emergency of international concern by a declaration of
the World Health Organization on 30th January 2020. The ongoing
epidemic involves multiple outbreaks of Coronavirus Disease 2019, coded as “COVID-19” (CDC Weekly,
2020). This
disease is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2
virus) a new disease which is closely related to bat coronaviruses, pangolin
coronaviruses (SARS-CoV-1). The ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 was first
identified in Wuhan, China (ECDC, 2020).
The position of WHO (2020), is that the spread
of the virus to other countries was made possible by the Chinese New Year
migration of the early and mid-January 2020.
Wuhan city is a transport hub in
China as such some individuals who travelled for the China new year holiday
celebration on 25 January which initiated “The Year of the Rat” got infected
and quickly spread it throughout the country. As of 6th March 2020, More
than 89 countries have been affected with prevalent cases in central China,
South Korea, Italy and Iran, other countries in no particular other include; Thailand, Japan,
Macau, Taiwan, the United States of America, Hong Kong, Singapore, France,
Nepal, Vietnam, Australia, Malaysia, Canada, Cambodia, Germany, Finland, Sri
Lanka, the United Arab Emirates, India, the Philippines, the United Kingdom,
Russia, Sweden, Spain, Belgium, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Bahrain,
Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Algeria, Austria, Brazil, Croatia, Switzerland, Greece,
Pakistan, North Macedonia, Georgia, Norway, Romania, Denmark, Estonia, Northern
Ireland, San Marino, the Netherlands, Belarus, Lithuania, New Zealand, Mexico,
Azerbaijan, Iceland, Monaco, Qatar, Ecuador, Luxembourg, Ireland, Armenia, the
Dominican Republic, the Czech Republic, Andorra, Indonesia, Tunisia, Nigeria,
etc. Accordingly, Tedros Adhanom, the WHO director praised China's response to the
virus as of 24 February in combating to avoid a significant number of cases
(National Review, 2020). Yet, as new cases reportedly dropped in China the
number of new cases outside China had exceeded the number of new cases in China
for the first time on 25 February 2020. BNO News (2020) reports that more than
98,000 cases have been confirmed, of which over 7,100 were classified as
serious. Another over 3,000 people have died of the epidemic in China and over
350 have died in other countries, and more than 53,000 people have recovered.
Statement of the
problem
There are several interactional situations that
define how society functions especially its level of structural
interdependence. Thus, the institutional structure of the society and groups have
significant bearing on the way society is eventually managed and this is of
huge interest to sociologists. According to Raimi (2020), the world we live
in today is fundamentally and structurally diseased in such a manner that we
are progressively living in a vampire social world where all known values that
sustain the essence of life have been debased, so humans feast on humans for
their daily survival. This does not mean literally eating each other’s flesh,
it does however reflect a deficit in how we interact and associate. Thus, an
empirical understanding of the problem of diseases and illness behaviours and
by implication the proper pathway to finding lasting solution demands a
sociological diagnosis and treatment alongside the laboratory sciences and
technology.
Since the outbreak of coronavirus was visited with
unpreparedness, there is currently no vaccine or any antiviral treatment
process, though scientific and laboratory research is ongoing. The only
recommended preventive measures include hand washing, maintaining distance from
people who are sick, and self-isolation for a period of fourteen days if an
individual is suspected of being infected (CDC, 2020). Sociologically, this
appears to be a well-informed medical opinion of sustaining or saving life, but
very much inclusive are events that touch on social symbols and culture amongst
others. A medical doctor prescribing medications and patient’s acceptance is
more than a health decision but quite often or not, the cultural and religious
beliefs and practices do influence medical-decision making and health-seeking
behavior. More so, sentiments arise on the broad background of feelings and
interests which develop as a result of socio-cultural interactions amongst
people of the same group. Sentiments are emotional feeling bound up with some
value judgment, misinterpretation of objects and ideal misinformation. The international
response to the problem posed by the coronavirus is apt, the travel
restrictions, quarantines, and curfews, temperature checks, advisories warning
against travel to regions with ongoing community transmission, yet, the Sinophobia
stereotype and racism against people of Chinese and East Asian descent as well
as rapid spread of misinformation about the virus poses serious policy and
academic concerns.
Conceptual
clarification
Sinophobia: An Anti-Chinese
sentiment (from Latin Sinae "China" and Greek phobos
"fear") is a sentiment against the people of East Asia and the
Chinese culture. It is targeted at China, especially minorities living in other
countries and involves immigration, development of national identity in
neighboring countries, majority-minority relations, imperialist legacies, and
racism. Its opposite is Sinophilia.
Coronavirus: The name originated
on 11 February 2020, as WHO in a press conference established Coronavirus “COVID-19”
as the name of the disease caused by Severe acute respiratory syndrome
coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), with first case on 1st December 2019 at
Wuhan, Hubei, China.
Theoretical framework
In mainstream sociology, grand theories seek
to explain general social problems thus, concerning this study on illness
behaviour, we shall consider the theory of structural functionalism. One of the
renounced scholars of this theory is a founding father of sociology; Emile
Durkheim who proposed division of labour as a process that increases
interdependence.
Structural functionalism sees the human society as a single
interconnected and interdependent social system, each element performs a
definite function. Thus, the institution of health, just like the legal,
political, economy and family must interact to produce equilibrium. Here, we
view the society as an organism which has different parts and the functional
integration of the organism as a whole is occasioned by the interdependence of
the parts. An abnormality will not bring about growth, so is the social world.
Society persist on the principle of functional integration. Thus, failures of
certain parts of society will bring about a dysfunction and disequilibrium;
society will function in an abnormal way.
Applying this theory to our study, it becomes
crystal clear that the ongoing Sinophobia; a form of racism caused by the
outbreak of coronavirus is endemic to the survival of the global society. The
theory simply posits that for a disease free world we must all play our parts,
without ill will, prejudice, and other forms of sentiments. Society will
function effectively when all nations are interdependent and come together to
seek solution to the outbreak and not to draw back and or make mockery of the
people of Asian Descent.
Method
This paper employs the content analysis method.
The study relied primarily on secondary sources gathered from news articles,
ongoing researches, and information recorded by verified online sources of
information. However, it must be noted that a major limitation of this study is
that the research is an ongoing epidemic outbreak which restricts the
researcher’s participant observation at the time. To its advantage, secondary
data does not require access to respondents or subjects (Harris, 2001), making
it a less expensive mode of research. An aspect of this paper is to assess the applicability
of current literal observation, it is not intended to provide a detailed
re-statement of its clinical content but more of conceptual research of
existing socio-medical works.
Findings and
Discussion
Despite the deliberate political drive to
underreport the outcome of the coronavirus, the global scare suggest that the
mortality rate is high as every infection brings us closer to losing someone.
Our biggest threat is willful ignorance and scaremongers which is worse than
the virus itself. It is the place of sociology to explain, interpret and also
make predictions in ways that aid better understanding and proper comprehension
of events and how these affect the social bond in society.
In Nigeria, on 27 February, the first case was
confirmed of an Italian citizen who arrived Lagos from Milan, Italy for a
business visit, but later fell ill and was transferred to Lagos State
Biosecurity Facility for isolation and testing. The test result was confirmed
positive by the Virology Laboratory of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital,
a part of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
He was transferred to the
Infectious Disease Hospital in Yaba, Lagos. Some of the reactions by Nigerian
citizens have been that the confirmed case is a scam to make use of the funds
set aside by government to combat the disease if it surfaces.
It is important to note that just like every
human issue, the coronavirus has generated both a healthy and unhealthy
sentiments amongst people. These sentiments are mostly woven by racism,
misinformation among others. Below, a brief narrative is provided for each of
these identified sentiments.
The Racial Sentiment
The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019
(COVID-19), has led to increased Sinophobia; in forms of extreme prejudice,
discrimination, violence, and racism against China, people of East Asian and
regions of penetration, many countries in Europe, US and Africa are seeing
rising anti-Chinese sentiment. For instance, in Australia, Vrajial (2020)
reports two highest circulating newspapers that published provocative
headlines. Melbourne's Herald Sun's headline read, "Chinese virus
pandamonium", a misspelling of "pandemonium" and alluding to
China's native pandas, while Sydney's Daily Telegraph's headline read,
"China kids stay home". One of the outcomes of these headlines was a
petition of over 51,000 signatures demanding an apology (The
National, 2020). Also in Western Australia, AU News
(2020) reported an incident
at Woolworths’ supermarket in Port Hedland whereby a staff refused entry to
customers who appeared to be of Asian descent, claiming it was to prevent the
spread of the novel coronavirus. A witness to the incident made a complaint
that was upheld by Woolworths who confirmed that the staff was wrong, and apologized
for the incident and said they were conducting a full investigation into such
discriminate action.
According to Chrysanthos (2020), the Ravenswood
School for Girls, Sydney's North Shore ordered a South Korean student to leave
her school dormitory even when she had not been to China since visiting
Shanghai in October 2019 and was medically cleared when she arrived at the
school. Similarly, Bell (2020) reported that a Chinese-Malaysian student in
Perth found herself evicted from her shared home upon returning to Australia
after visiting her home country for the Lunar New Year. In addition, on Chung
(2020) reported that a man collapsed and died of a suspected cardiac arrest
outside of a restaurant in Sydney and viral videos circulating on social media
suggest that bystanders refused to perform CPR out of fear of the novel
coronavirus. In the same vein, Peter Akman, a reporter who works with Canada's
CTV News, tweeted an image of his Asian barber in mask and said,
"Hopefully all I got today was a haircut” and got himself fired after the
tweet was reported (Smith, 2020). Furthermore, Cecco (2020) reported that an
online petition was set up, urging schools to ban Chinese students. A board
that represents 208 schools in Toronto condemned the petition, saying that it
is inciting ethnic racism and bias. In a similar twist, Solhi (2020), highlighted
a petition in Malaysia calling for citizens from China to be banned from
entering the country on the claim that the "new virus is widely spread
throughout the world because of unhygienic lifestyle”, the petition was
reportedly signed by a little over 250,000 people within a week.
In Thailand, a restaurant in Chiang Mai
displayed a sign which read, "We apologize we are not accepting CHINESE
customers. Thank you." after a customer left the restaurant upon noticing
a group of Chinese people inside. The police demanded that the sign be taken
down, but suggested that it could be rewritten in Chinese as "We ran out
of food” (Asia Times, 2020). To add to the list of negative racial reports, CNN
(2020), noted that Tottenham Hotspur’s footballer Dele Alli, posted a video on
Snapchat where he wore a face mask and appeared to mock an Asian man seated
near him in Dubai about the coronavirus outbreak. He later apologized and
deleted the video. In Solihull, United Kingdom, a Chinese-origin woman was
allegedly called "a dirty Chink" and told "Take your fucking
coronavirus back home!". An Indian-origin woman who tried to intervene was
beaten up and later hospitalized (Times of India, 2020). To make matters worse,
an alleged fake World Health Organization (WHO) flyer in Los Angeles advised
people to avoid Asian-American restaurants (BBC News, 2020)
Kurohi (2020), reports that the Ministry of Home
Affairs has ordered an investigation against an Islamic teacher named Abdul
Halim bin Abdul Karim, who posted on Facebook that coronavirus outbreak was
"a retribution by Allah against the Chinese for their oppressive treatment
of Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang." In a separate post, Abdul Halim claimed
that Chinese people do not wash properly after defecating and were not as
hygienic as Muslims, causing the virus to spread. Home Affairs and Law Minister
K. Shanmugam reacted to the comments as "xenophobic" and
"thoroughly racist" and is "quite unacceptable from anyone, let
alone someone who is supposed to be a religious teacher." The Islamic
Religious Council of Singapore is aware of the post, which "expresses
views that do not represent the Muslim community" and was investigating
the matter. In response, Abdul Halim later said that his Facebook post written
in Malay, was not intended to be racist and didn't target "any particular
race"
In India, Times Now (2020), drew attention to an
Islamic cleric Ilyas Sharafuddin who said in an audio address that coronavirus
was a "punishment of Allah on China for mistreating Uighur Muslims".
Ilyas said that "the Chinese have threatened the Muslims and tried to
destroy lives of 20 million Muslims. Muslims were forced to drink alcohol,
their mosques were destroyed and their Holy Book was burned. They thought that
no one can challenge them, but Allah the most powerful punished them."
Sentiments based on
Misinformation
The sentiments woven around misinformation have
a few dimensions and they are discussed under these subheadings:
As eating habits: In the context of
eating habits, Gaynor (2020), reported a spread of misinformation which emerged
as a result of promoting a video showing a young Chinese woman biting into a
bat, falsely suggesting it was shot in Wuhan and the outbreak was due to locals
eating bats. The widely circulated video featured unrelated footage of Chinese
travel blogger Wang Mengyun eating bat soup in the island country Palau in 2016
as part of an online travel programme. Wang later made an apology post on
Weibo, where she revealed that she was inundated with abuse, such as death
threats, and that she only wished to showcase local Palauan cuisine.
As man-made Bioweapon
conspiracy: The spread of the news of the coronavirus outbreak as
a manmade bioweapon is also a strong source of misinformation which puts the
Chinese and United States (U.S.) governments at the center stage. With regard
to China, the BBC published an article in January about coronavirus
misinformation, citing two 24 January articles from the Washington Times which
claimed the virus was part of a Chinese biological weapons programme, based at
the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).
The Washington Post later published an
article debunking the conspiracy theory, citing United States experts who
explained why the Institute was not suitable for Bioweapon Research, that
countries had abandoned Bioweapons as fruitless, and that there was no evidence
that the virus was genetically engineered (The Washington Post, 2020). Similarly,
U.S. Senator Tom Cotton and Francis Boyle, a law professor, suggested that the
virus may have been a Chinese Bioweapon, while in the opinion of numerous
medical experts there is no evidence for this. Radio broadcaster Rush Limbaugh
said the virus was probably “a ChiCom laboratory experiment” and that the
Chinese were weaponizing the virus and media hysteria surrounding it to bring
down Donald Trump (Washington Examiner, 2020). On the other hand, directing claims to the U.S.,
The Economist (2020), reported a conspiracy theory about COVID-19 being the
CIA's creation to keep China down. Multiple conspiracy articles in Chinese from
SARS-era resurfaced during the outbreak with altered details, claiming that
SARS is biological warfare conducted by America against China. Some of these
articles claim that BGI Group from China sold genetic information of the
Chinese race to America, with America then being able to deploy the virus
specifically targeting the gene of Chinese individuals.
As Spy operation: Scholars have alleged that the coronavirus was stolen from a Canadian
virus research laboratory by Chinese scientists (Broderick, 2020). The CBC
claimed their early report was distorted by misinformation, and that Eric
Morrissette, chief of media relations for Health Canada and the Public Health
Agency of Canada said that conspiracy theory had "no factual basis".
(Yates and Pauls, 2020)
As Population control
scheme: Jordan
Sather, a conspiracy theory YouTuber supporting the far-right QAnon conspiracy
theory and the anti-vax movement, falsely claimed the outbreak was a population
control scheme created by Pirbright Institute in England, and by former
Microsoft CEO Bill Gates (Broderick, 2020).
Nurse whistleblower: According to Ghaffary (2020), On 24
January, a video circulated online appearing to be of a nurse named Jin Hui in
Hubei province describing a far direr situation in Wuhan than purported by
Chinese officials. The video claims that more than 90,000 people have been infected
with the virus in China, and the virus is starting the second mutation. The
video attracted millions of views on various social media platforms and was
mentioned in numerous online reports. However, the BBC noted that contrary to
its English subtitles in one of the video's existing versions, the woman does
not claim to be either a nurse or a doctor in the video and that her suit and
mask do not match the ones worn by medical staff in Hubei. The video's claim of
90,000 infected cases was noted to be 'unsubstantiated'
Mustard patches and
Goose Fat: In this
regard, the Estonian Minister of the Interior Mart Helme stated at a government
press conference that the common cold had been renamed as the coronavirus and
that in his youth nothing like that existed. He recommended wearing warm socks
and mustard patches as well as spreading goose fat on one's chest as treatments
for the virus. Mart Helme also said that the virus would pass within a few days
to a week just like the common cold (Vasli, 2020).
Industrial bleach: Sommer (2020)
reported Some QAnon proponents, including Jordan Stather, and others, have
promoted gargling "Miracle Mineral Supplement" actually an industrial
bleach as a way of preventing or curing Coronavirus.
African resistance: The last and relatively interesting
misinformation concerns the continent of Africa. Information spread via
Facebook, implied that a Cameroonian student in China had been completely cured
of the virus due to his African genetics. Other media sources have noted that
no evidence supports the assumption that Africans are more resistant to the
virus and labelled such claims as false information. (AFP Fact Check,
2020).
Some Efforts to address
the problem of misinformation
Information is a social tool for family health,
disease control and illness prevention.
According to World Health Organization
(2020) declaration on "massive infodemic", citing an over-abundance
of reported information, accurate and false, about the virus that "makes
it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they
need it." The WHO stated that the high demand for timely and trustworthy
information has incentivised the creation of a direct WHO 24/7 myth-busting
hotline where its communication and social media teams have been monitoring and
responding to misinformation through its website and social media pages.
To corroborate the above, Facebook, Twitter and
Google said they were working with World Health Organization (WHO) to address
"misinformation". In a blogpost, Facebook stated they would remove
content flagged by leading global health organizations and local authorities
that violate its content policy on misinformation leading to "physical
harm" (Richtel, 2020).
Furthermore, in an attempt to provide enabling
support to mitigate the damage of misinformation, Amazon banned over a million
products that wrongly claimed to be able to cure or protect against
coronavirus. They also removed tens of thousands of listings for overpriced
health products
Conclusion
While Sinophobia and racist behaviours toward
affected nations have been on the rise since the coronavirus outbreak, there
are notable efforts against such trends to stop the stereotypes and
discrimination. RADII (2020) reports a Chinese-Italian man who held up a plaque
stating “I am not a virus” and gave “free hug” in a street in Italy. Borrelli (2020), reports that President
Sergio Mattarella made a surprise visit to a primary school in Rome where half
of the pupils are Chinese as a show of support and solidarity, saying
"Friendship and peace are fundamental and you know it."
The concept of race is often used in a
biological sense to refer to a population sharing a genepool which gives rise
to physical characteristics of distribution determined by heredity. Giving the
physical and biological traits such as skin color, eye form and body build,
there is no known differences in mental and social capacity. That means the
concept of racism is superficial to social life. As seen on the discourse
above, Sinophobia and Xenophobia is the very reason for unequal opportunity
meted on those people who are not infected or dwell in high risk area but
because of their nationality there. Thus, Sinophobia can drive people to hide
the illness to avoid the discrimination and humiliation, it can prevent people
from seeking health care immediately as symptom arise, it can discourage people
from adopting healthy behaviors.
Sociologically, there is only one race – the
human race. Thus, apart from conditions of physical appearance in terms of color
and body building all human beings are prone to diseases, natural disasters and
mental health.
As a result, racism is poor judgment and without scientific
proofs. Whereas, the growth and productivity of society is anchored on
interdependence, cultural relativity and handling the right information. we can
keep healthy society by showing supportive behavior towards coronavirus.
Recommendations
i.
The government at the Federal and State level should
work to negate the novel coronavirus which mortality rate is not anywhere near
ebolavirus, as such facility preparedness and information dissemination in the
wake of the pandemic should be upheld, which mismanagement and corruption in
the use of funds should be closely monitored throughout the process.
ii.
Public stigmatization among specific population and
the rise of harmful prejudice on the Chinese should be discouraged at all cost
iii.
The wearing of mask when taking care of patients suspected
to be infected of the coronavirus in China and in other regions of confirmed
cases, and upon finding solution such medical culture should be maintained to
other infections which may spread coughing and sneezing
iv.
Citizens should be more patriotic and instill such
socialization into young ones, to despise discrimination against the Chinese
and people of other cultures.
v.
Shun willful ignorance and scaremongering with life
threatening issues, posting offensive articles online and airing views that are
Sinophobia in nature, which in itself is worse than the virus
vi.
To avoid Sinophobia and all forms of Xenophobia, we
must be thoughtful about the way we communicate on social media and on air
platforms. We must all take precautions and obey the guidelines of governments
and the World Health Organization. Washing of hands regularly with sanitizers,
maintaining distance from people who are sick, and self-isolation for a period
of fourteen days if an individual is suspected of being infected, and reporting
every suspected cases to the ministry of health.
vii.
Lastly, this study lunches a campaign against
Sinophobia and every form of Xenophobic racial discrimination with the hashtag #SayNoToSinophobia. This trend of this
on social media will draw the attention of citizens about good and healthy
relationship in the process of combating the coronavirus disease.
********************
Written by John, Gospel Edoho
The Senate has called on the Federal Ministry of
Aviation to immediately take steps to ensure all persons arriving from
China, especially Chinese citizens from Nigeria that travelled for the
Chinese Lunar New Year festivities, self-isolate by staying indoors in
their homes for at least two weeks before mixing with Nigerian public.
The cost of the coronavirus outbreak for businesses is rising as the
organised private sector explores measures to reduce the impact on the
struggling local economy.
