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COVID-19’s origin no excuse for racism

OK, we know that the COVID-19 virus originated in Wuhan, China. We know that it spread from there around the world, causing this terrible pandemic we are battling. But the idea that people of Chinese or Asian descent, some of whom have lived in this country for generations, are responsible for the virus, and for spreading it, is absurd.

But some people — the same people, no doubt, who thought you could get the so-called swine flu from eating pork chops or bacon, or the avian flu from eating chicken — have put two and two together and come up with five, assisted by the former president who insists on calling COVID-19 the “Chinese Flu” or the “Kung Flu.”

And so we have seen an increase in violence against Asian-Americans in the past year, violence that culminated this week with the murders of eight people, most of them Asian women working in massage parlors, in Atlanta, Ga. A white man, Robert Aaron Long, is charged with traveling to two different massage parlors and blasting away.

Police are still investigating what motivated Long. It may have had something to do with sexual addiction, but it may have had something to do with bias against Asians.

And so Asians are living with the fear that this shooting might motivate others to take out their frustrations about COVID-19 on them.

In fact, the greatest COVID-19 threat is posed by those who don’t want to wear masks, who refuse to be vaccinated and think they should be able to go wherever they want. That’s how the virus really spreads.

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