As the reports of confirmed cases of coronavirus and the death toll in China spread, many are pointing fingers at the Asian-Canadian community for the outbreak

The coronavirus outbreak has stoked fear among many Canadians, but none more intensely than members of the Chinese Canadian community, who fear a repeating history of discrimination.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Toronto councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam urged the public to ‘not give into to xenophobia and racism’ against the Chinese Canadian community, alongside Mayor John Tory.

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Follow along for live updates on the coronavirus outbreak: Death toll hits 213 while global infections rise to 9,800

“Toronto is home to almost 300,000 residents of visible Chinese descent,” reads her statement , posted on Twitter. “I know that when people are afraid, it can be easy to look for blame.”

Now referred to as the 2019 Novel Coronavirus or 2019-nCoV by the World Health Organization, the mysterious virus causing fever-like symptoms and respiratory troubles has officially recorded two confirmed cases in Toronto , with 23 others under investigation.

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With potential cases of the virus growing in Canada, the fear and stigma continues to emerge, pointing fingers towards Chinese Canadians. Many in the Chinese community are advising otherwise, but it has not halted the public from directing hate and racist comments towards the community.

On Sunday, CTV investigative reporter Peter Akman tweeted a photo of him next to an Asian barber wearing a medical mask.

“Hopefully ALL I got today is a haircut,” he wrote in the tweet.

The post has since been deleted after receiving backlash from countless Twitter users. Akman has been actively replying to tweets criticizing his actions with the same statement throughout.

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“My tweet earlier today was insensitive. My barber told me he was offering everyone masks. I apologize for any offence I may have caused,” he said.

Justin Kong, the executive director of the Chinese Canadian National Council, says that Akman’s online discrimination is impermissible.

“Mainstream Canadian media should speak for all Canadians – diverse Canadians,” he says. “For a reporter to post something that racist is unacceptable.”

Toronto resident Terri Chu also tweeted earlier this week that she feared the “inevitable wave of racism” that follow the coronavirus outbreak and subsequently, received a host of vitriol, according to the Guardian.

A video of a young Chinese woman using chopsticks to bite into a whole bat went viral on social media as the news of the coronavirus spread and was picked up by some media outlets. However the woman — a video blogger — said the video had been filmed three years ago in Palau, a Pacific island nation, rather than in China. She released a statement on Monday, listing the number of threats she has received since the video was circulated by an unknown person.

“‘You should go to hell. You should be killed in the evening. You’re abnormal. You’re disgusting. Why haven’t you died?’ These are the messages I just received today,” she said.

Bats have not been officially linked to the cause of the virus, but have become a staple in racist attacks blaming Chinese eating habits for the coronavirus spread.

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Simu Liu, who acts in the CBC sitcom ‘Kim’s Convenience’ commented on the backlash on January 28, reminding people not to use the outbreak as an excuse to mistreat Asian-Canadians.

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Other users on social media have posted tweets, comments blaming Chinese Canadians for the virus outbreak and encouraging people to avoid members of the community.

https://twitter.com/oNicoFN/status/1221239848734019585

https://twitter.com/tayrenee26/status/1221492011364233218

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Earlier this week, f amilies in the York Region — which houses a large Chinese Canadian population — sent an online petition to the York District School Board, urging the board to quarantine anyone who has travelled from China for 17 days.

“Stop immigrating Chinese to Canada due to health problems. It has been twice in the past. Minister of Immigration should block immigration of Chinese people now,” reads a comment under the petition.

Kong says he already sees a change in day-to-day interactions amongst Chinese Canadians in his community. The Chinese Canadian National Council office is located in York Region, and the petition is a concern made aware to Kong and his team.

“It’s absurd,” he says. “It’s not an evidence-based approach.”

SARS outbreak

The treatment that Chinese Canadians have been subjected to is reminiscent of that during the 2003 SARS virus outbreak. SARS, which originated in the Guangdong province in China, killed 700 people worldwide, including 44 residents in the Toronto-area. Wong-Tam, who was the leader of the Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto, recalled the impact the outbreak had on the community, in her statement.

“Chinatowns across the city saw revenues drop, as people allowed their fear of SARS and prejudices about its transmission to drive them away from Chinese-operated businesses. People of Chinese backgrounds were shunned at schools, harassed in the streets, taunted on public transits and many more felt ostracized and isolated from the rest of the city,” reads the statement.

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In wake of the outbreak, Historica Canada recirculated a video that highlighted the stigma stacked against Chinese communities during the 2003 SARS outbreak.

“We obviously had not anticipated this new coronavirus issue coming up,” says Anthony Wilson-Smith, the president and CEO of Historica Canada. “But when it did, there was clearly a new cause for interest in what we had done.”

The video , which was originally published in the fall of 2019, is part of a multi-part video series that explores historical cases of misinformation in Canada. It noted that the media had also played a role in propagating stigma against the Chinese Canadian community, by publishing photos of masked Asian people in highly infected areas.

Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

Wilson-Smith, who worked as a journalist during the SARS outbreak, said that linking those photos to news stories in Toronto “created the impression, whether intentionally or otherwise, that there was this tremendous fear and nervousness in Canada when there was not.”

Wilson-Smith says that Canadians should consider the extensive volume of information being presented, both factual and not.

“There are so many people who jump on to wrong conclusions woefully or otherwise who are not from real media,” he says. “There’s just so much noise that makes you believe.”

Chinese Canadians are fearful of repeating the racism that was present during the SARS outbreak, which harmfully impacted their sense of community.

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“Businesses were destroyed and communities were left tremendously damaged because of the discrimination,” Kong says. “Whether it was in schools, in local communities or the government.”

This has lead Kong to call for policies that do not jeopardize Asian communities and do not extend stigma to the entire population.

“It’s a public health issue, it’s not racialized,” says Kong.

The WHO has not yet declared a global health emergency, and the cases in Canada remain low. The Public Health Agency of Canada currently assesses that the risk to public health in relation to 2019-nCoV is low for Canadians and Canadian travellers.

Drawing on the impact of SARS, Canadians need to acknowledge that their chance of infection is still relatively low, according to Wilson-Smith.

“Virtually all the deaths [from SARS] were people passing through infected areas or first-responder service providers who were engaged in the issue. Otherwise, if you were a person walking the street, and I include anywhere from small-town Ontario through to Chinatown, there was not any greater danger,” Wilson-Smith says.

While the heightened fear of the coronavirus continues to surge through Canadian communities, no other community is as impacted as Chinese Canadians.