Back in February, health officials in New York told residents to congregate in huge crowds in “defiance” of coronavirus, a move that could have exposed thousands of people to COVID-19.

New York City Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot posted a tweet on February 9 urging citizens to flock to Chinatown in large numbers to celebrate the lunar new year while suggesting that advice to avoid crowds was “misinformation.”

Today our city is celebrating the #LunarNewYear parade in Chinatown, a beautiful cultural tradition with a rich history in our city. I want to remind everyone to enjoy the parade and not change any plans due to misinformation spreading about #coronavirus. https://t.co/bwCnIb7j8H — Commissioner Oxiris Barbot (@NYCHealthCommr) February 9, 2020

“Today our city is celebrating the #LunarNewYear parade in Chinatown, a beautiful cultural tradition with a rich history in our city. I want to remind everyone to enjoy the parade and not change any plans due to misinformation spreading about #coronavirus,” she wrote.

On the same day, Mark D. Levine, Chair of New York City Council health committee, lauded how “huge crowds gathering in NYC’s Chinatown” was a “powerful show of defiance of #coronavirus scare,” tweeting four images of large groups of people gathered to celebrate the occasion.

In powerful show of defiance of #coronavirus scare, huge crowds gathering in NYC's Chinatown for ceremony ahead of annual #LunarNewYear parade. Chants of "be strong Wuhan!" If you are staying away, you are missing out! pic.twitter.com/NGBUAfHWpl — Mark D. Levine (@MarkLevineNYC) February 9, 2020

Those tweets are receiving a fresh backlash of criticism given what has unfolded since. Many of the individuals who showed up for the celebrations were Chinese and could have visited China in the weeks before.

Confirmed cases of coronavirus across New York state surged 38 per cent overnight to 20,875 total cases. There have been 157 deaths.

New York is the hardest hit state in the country and New York City accounts for 12,305 confirmed infections.

The advice given by the officials was in line with World Health Organization rhetoric at the time, which discouraged the “stigmatization” of Chinese people.

Once again, it appears that pandering to political correctness almost certainly worsened the spread of coronavirus in New York and could even have led directly to people dying.

As we highlight in the video below, back in February, leftist officials in Italy were also urging citizens to go outside and hug Chinese people in order to fight racism.

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