CNN anchor Chris Cuomo urged viewers to "go straight ethnic" on Thursday night when it comes to cleaning surfaces in order to combat coronavirus.

During a conversation with CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Cuomo questioned his colleague about the contagiousness of the coronavirus and how long it can stay on a surface.

"How long can the thing live, like, on my desk?" Cuomo asked.

"Well, I'm going to give you the answer, but I don't want people to freak out by this," Gupta warned, "because it can live on surfaces for days, actually. ... Several studies that have looked at this, certain surfaces in the right condition, it can live for days."

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Gupta advised viewers to "disinfect all the time" since it "doesn't matter" if something was cleaned yesterday if someone coughs or sneezes after.

"Go straight ethnic," Cuomo said. "Be cleaning everything all the time with the harshest cleaners that you can find."

The remarks sparked quite the reaction on social media, some even called for his firing.

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"While talking about the importance of sanitizing and cleansing, @ChrisCuomo said people need to 'go straight ethnic'. This is an insensitive comment @CNN needs to take [responsibility] and #FireChrisCuomo," liberal activist Nikola said.

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CNN's Jim Acosta was criticized on social media for accusing President Trump of delivering a speech that smacked of xenophobia.

“The president referred to the coronavirus as a ‘foreign virus,’ that I think was interesting because, I was talking to sources earlier this evening, one of the points that the president wanted to make tonight, wanted to get across to Americans, is that this virus did not start here, but that they’re dealing it,” Acosta said. “Now, why the president would go as far to describe it as a foreign virus, that is something we’ll also be asking questions about.”

Acosta then said Trump is "going to come across to a lot of Americans as smacking of xenophobia" too because he said the coronavirus came from a foreign source.

Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report