Montreal, Canada – Frank Ye still remembers being rejected on the playground when he was six years old.
The now 23-year-old had moved to Canada a year earlier from China, and he was starting school in the Toronto area at the height of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2003. His classmates did not want to play with him.
“The memories I have of that time was really on an individual level about what I faced being a Chinese child at school, and that was children telling me to go away. ‘You can’t play with us because all Chinese people have SARS,'” he told Al Jazeera.
Now, with the novel coronavirus spreading around the world from the outbreak’s epicentre in China, Ye and other Chinese Canadians say they fear the xenophobia and racism that they experienced at the height of the SARS outbreak is increasing again.
Ye, a graduate student at the University of Toronto, said blaming Chinese Canadians for a virus that is not their fault is dehumanising and belittling and can be especially damaging for children.
“We risk really ostracising the community, we risk hurting businesses, we risk hurting people because we’re letting paranoia rather than facts drive how we react to this,” he said.
Social media driving xenophobia
The coronavirus, which originated in the city of Wuhan in China’s Hubei province, has killed at least 259 people inside the country to date.
It has also spread to several countries worldwide, prompting the World Health Organization on Thursday to declare the outbreak a global emergency.
Members of the Chinese-Canadian community say fears about the spread of the disease – around which misinformation is rife – have also led to what they feel is an uptick in xenophobia in Canada, where three confirmed cases of the coronavirus have been confirmed so far.
A traveller wears a mask at Pearson airport arrivals, shortly after Toronto Public Health received notification of Canada’s first presumptive confirmed case of novel coronavirus, in Toronto, Ontario [Carlos Osorio/Reuters]
A similar situation developed during the SARS outbreak in 2003. There were more than 8,000 reported SARS cases at that time, and the epidemic spread to 26 countries, including Canada, where 44 people died from the disease.
During the SARS outbreak, Amy Go worked at a long-term geriatric care facility in Toronto that primarily served Chinese Canadians, and she said people regularly accused them of harbouring the disease there.
Go, now the interim executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice, a human rights group, said social media has become the place where “vile, racist comments” are festering around the current coronavirus outbreak.
There are still only ultimately three [coronavirus] cases in Canada. Three. Common flu kills 3,500 Canadians every year. Let’s put this in perspective.
Amy Go, interim executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice
She said she has seen comments online such as, “Quarantine all Chinese until Chinese virus is gone” and “Stop immigration from China because they carry this disease”. The brazen racism people displayed online is something she said she did not see during the SARS outbreak.
“There are still only ultimately three [coronavirus] cases in Canada. Three. Common flu kills 3,500 Canadians every year. Let’s put this in perspective,” she told Al Jazeera.
Go likened those attitudes to the “Yellow Peril”, a period of fearmongering around Chinese immigration to Canada at the turn of the 20th century.
“This kind of violation of human rights, this further stigmatisation, this entrenchment of ‘Yellow Peril’ perception … ultimately, collectively we bear the consequences,” she said. “When coronavirus is controlled, guess what’s left still? [The idea that] Chinese are the carriers of diseases.”
Stigmatising the ‘other’
Harris Ali, a sociology professor at Toronto’s York University who has researched the 2003 SARS outbreak response, said many of the racist incidents at that time were individualised. They ranged from people harassing other commuters on the bus or subway, crossing the street when someone of a particular ethnic group was walking by, or leaving hateful messages at places serving the Chinese community.
In the case of the coronavirus, Ali also said social media has emerged as the main place where people are spreading xenophobia.
He pointed to a recent petition set up by parents at a Toronto-area school board. Signed by nearly 10,000 people, the petition calls on the York District School Board (YDSB) to order its schools to track and name any students who recently travelled to China and ask those students “to stay at home and keep isolated”.
“York region has a large Chinese-Canadian population. There were a lot of people travelling to China before or during the Chinese New Year. We cannot be overly cautious in protecting our children,” the petition read.
A directions sign is seen at Sunnybrook Hospital, where a patient is being treated in isolation for what Canadian health officials said was the first presumptive confirmed case of novel coronavirus, in Toronto, Ontario [Carlos Osorio/Reuters]
Ali said this “Othering” is harmful because it creates a situation in which people can easily find and target scapegoats. “Under extreme situations, people let their guard down and [they] just lash out at the most visible, simple and apparent thing,” he told Al Jazeera.
The YDSB responded to the petition on January 27, saying it was important that the coronavirus “not be seen as a Chinese virus” or that assumptions be made about the risks of others.
“Situations such as these can regrettably give rise to discrimination based on perceptions, stereotypes and hate,” the school board said in an open letter. “It’s important that we not make assumptions about students or staff based on their race or travel history.”
According to Ali, xenophobia can also have a harmful effect on the ability to fight the spread of a disease.
If someone fears being shunned for being associated with a virus, he or she may not come forward to see a doctor, and then the virus will be more difficult to contain and treat. “Stigmatisation is important. It does play into the physical aspects of the disease spread; they’re not separable,” Ali said.
Public health
Justin Kong, executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto chapter, a local advocacy group not directly affiliated with Amy Go’s organisation, said a general climate of fear has developed around the virus among all residents of the city.
Within the Chinese-Canadian community, he said that fear is two-fold: People are afraid of the disease itself, as well as any possible social ramifications they could face as a group. “We saw that [with] SARS: both the economic and the social damage done by it … the stigmatisation of Chinese areas, of Chinese-Canadian people,” Kong told Al Jazeera.
He said he has already seen people from outside of the Chinese-Canadian community “avoiding a lot of places that are associated with Chinese-ness or Chinese Canadians”.
When we peddle racist ideas, when we peddle xenophobia, that isn’t going to protect you from the virus … Proper public health procedures and precautions will protect you from the virus. Racism won’t.
Frank Ye
Education and open communication with all community members are critical to combat disinformation around the coronavirus this time around, he said, and health experts and community groups are more readily prepared to combat racism and discrimination than they were during the SARS outbreak.
“We shouldn’t have a blanket fear of anyone that looks Chinese or is Chinese,” Kong said. “Obviously, public health is doing the best that they can to make sure everyone is safe, and we trust that they will do that.”
That was echoed by Ye, the University of Toronto student, who also urged people to be careful about what they share online to avoid spreading misinformation.
“When we peddle racist ideas, when we peddle xenophobia, that isn’t going to protect you from the virus,” he said. “Proper public health procedures and precautions will protect you from the virus. Racism won’t.”
The Canadian government says it will donate up to 200,000 vaccine doses to fight the mpox outbreak in Congo and other African countries.
It says the donated doses of Imvamune will come from Canada’s existing supply and will not affect the country’s preparedness for mpox cases in this country.
Minister of Health Mark Holland says the donation “will help to protect those in the most affected regions of Africa and will help prevent further spread of the virus.”
Dr. Madhukar Pai, Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health, says although the donation is welcome, it is a very small portion of the estimated 10 million vaccine doses needed to control the outbreak.
Vaccine donations from wealthier countries have only recently started arriving in Africa, almost a month after the World Health Organization declared the mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern.
A few days after the declaration in August, Global Affairs Canada announced a contribution of $1 million for mpox surveillance, diagnostic tools, research and community awareness in Africa.
On Thursday, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said mpox is still on the rise and that testing rates are “insufficient” across the continent.
Jason Kindrachuk, Canada research chair in emerging viruses at the University of Manitoba, said donating vaccines, in addition to supporting surveillance and diagnostic tests, is “massively important.”
But Kindrachuk, who has worked on the ground in Congo during the epidemic, also said that the international response to the mpox outbreak is “better late than never (but) better never late.”
“It would have been fantastic for us globally to not be in this position by having provided doses a much, much longer time prior than when we are,” he said, noting that the outbreak of clade I mpox in Congo started in early 2023.
Clade II mpox, endemic in regions of West Africa, came to the world’s attention even earlier — in 2022 — as that strain of virus spread to other countries, including Canada.
Two doses are recommended for mpox vaccination, so the donation may only benefit 100,000 people, Pai said.
Pai questioned whether Canada is contributing enough, as the federal government hasn’t said what percentage of its mpox vaccine stockpile it is donating.
“Small donations are simply not going to help end this crisis. We need to show greater solidarity and support,” he said in an email.
“That is the biggest lesson from the COVID-19 pandemic — our collective safety is tied with that of other nations.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
HALIFAX – The Nova Scotia government says it could be months before it reveals how many people are on the wait-list for a family doctor.
The head of the province’s health authority told reporters Wednesday that the government won’t release updated data until the 160,000 people who were on the wait-list in June are contacted to verify whether they still need primary care.
Karen Oldfield said Nova Scotia Health is working on validating the primary care wait-list data before posting new numbers, and that work may take a matter of months. The most recent public wait-list figures are from June 1, when 160,234 people, or about 16 per cent of the population, were on it.
“It’s going to take time to make 160,000 calls,” Oldfield said. “We are not talking weeks, we are talking months.”
The interim CEO and president of Nova Scotia Health said people on the list are being asked where they live, whether they still need a family doctor, and to give an update on their health.
A spokesperson with the province’s Health Department says the government and its health authority are “working hard” to turn the wait-list registry into a useful tool, adding that the data will be shared once it is validated.
Nova Scotia’s NDP are calling on Premier Tim Houston to immediately release statistics on how many people are looking for a family doctor. On Tuesday, the NDP introduced a bill that would require the health minister to make the number public every month.
“It is unacceptable for the list to be more than three months out of date,” NDP Leader Claudia Chender said Tuesday.
Chender said releasing this data regularly is vital so Nova Scotians can track the government’s progress on its main 2021 campaign promise: fixing health care.
The number of people in need of a family doctor has more than doubled between the 2021 summer election campaign and June 2024. Since September 2021 about 300 doctors have been added to the provincial health system, the Health Department said.
“We’ll know if Tim Houston is keeping his 2021 election promise to fix health care when Nova Scotians are attached to primary care,” Chender said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – Newfoundland and Labrador‘s chief medical officer is monitoring the rise of whooping cough infections across the province as cases of the highly contagious disease continue to grow across Canada.
Dr. Janice Fitzgerald says that so far this year, the province has recorded 230 confirmed cases of the vaccine-preventable respiratory tract infection, also known as pertussis.
Late last month, Quebec reported more than 11,000 cases during the same time period, while Ontario counted 470 cases, well above the five-year average of 98. In Quebec, the majority of patients are between the ages of 10 and 14.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick has declared a whooping cough outbreak across the province. A total of 141 cases were reported by last month, exceeding the five-year average of 34.
The disease can lead to severe complications among vulnerable populations including infants, who are at the highest risk of suffering from complications like pneumonia and seizures. Symptoms may start with a runny nose, mild fever and cough, then progress to severe coughing accompanied by a distinctive “whooping” sound during inhalation.
“The public, especially pregnant people and those in close contact with infants, are encouraged to be aware of symptoms related to pertussis and to ensure vaccinations are up to date,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s Health Department said in a statement.
Whooping cough can be treated with antibiotics, but vaccination is the most effective way to control the spread of the disease. As a result, the province has expanded immunization efforts this school year. While booster doses are already offered in Grade 9, the vaccine is now being offered to Grade 8 students as well.
Public health officials say whooping cough is a cyclical disease that increases every two to five or six years.
Meanwhile, New Brunswick’s acting chief medical officer of health expects the current case count to get worse before tapering off.
A rise in whooping cough cases has also been reported in the United States and elsewhere. The Pan American Health Organization issued an alert in July encouraging countries to ramp up their surveillance and vaccination coverage.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 10, 2024.
