The Councilor for the city of Salisbury in Australia said she was a victim of racial abuse on Monday while she was heading to the store for some groceries. 39-year-old Sarah Ouk said a man in a car yelled at her that Asians were the reasons for the coronavirus and spat at her, reports the women journal.

“A man drove passed and started screaming ‘you Asians bring corona to Australia’ before coughing and sneezing at me,” Ouk said. “I was so scared. And when I turned around, he had his head sticking out of the video as he spat at me.”

Although the man drove off, the incident left Ouk shaken.

“I crossed to the other side to go to Aldi with that fear – I was like ‘what’s happening? What did I do wrong?”’ she told ABC.net.

Even in the supermarket, she couldn’t help notice a couple looking at her “wierdly.”

“I went in [with] all these mixed emotions … into the store, and then this couple was looking at me really weirdly, like I’m full of viruses or something,” Ouk said. “So I just got all my groceries that I needed … and quickly came out and [went] back home.”

The incident almost left her in tears afterwards.

Sarah Ouk didn’t report the incident to the police because she didn’t get the car’s registration or see the man’s face clearly. However, she wanted to get the word out that racism and this kind of behavior were unacceptable.

“I want to get the message out there that racism isn’t okay,” she said. “It’s not on and it needs to stop. People should feel safe when they go to the shops.”

Sarah Ouk and her mother had immigrated from Australia from Cambodia as refugees in 1986. She has been on the Salisbury Council for the last 18 months

Hate crimes against Asians outside of Asia have been on the rise ever since the coronavirus outbreak. In Australia, just last week, a bus driver was blamed for bringing the coronavirus to the country while someone tagged “DEATH 2 DOG EATERS” in front of an Asian family’s house in Epping, Sydney.