There are now daily reports in the media of racist abuse and attacks against Chinese and East Asian people due to the coronavirus outbreak. We speak to LSHTM statistician Edmond Ng and Jabez Lam from Hackney Chinese Community Services about the experiences of London’s Chinese community, LSHTM student Kazuki Shimizu reflects on the situation in Japan, and LSHTM social scientist Leesa Lin looks at the evidence on discrimination and disease outbreaks. For anyone affected by racist attacks as a result of COVID-19, information and support is available at https://bit.ly/3bWqKLU. You can read Kazuki’s correspondence to The Lancet at https://bit.ly/39SqyLT. Please keep sending your questions about the science behind the outbreak to comms@lshtm.ac.uk.