'Stoked unfounded fears': Biden bans linking COVID-19 to China in bid to quell xenophobia

In another move to quell racism, US President Joe Biden has banned references to COVID-19 by geographical location. Last year, Donald Trump and his supporters attracted considerable flak after referring to the infection as “China virus” “Wuhan virus” on public platforms. While Trump and his allies have alleged that China was responsible for the pandemic, Biden said that such accusations could heighten xenophobia.

In a memorandum released on January 26, Biden asserted that the Inflammatory and xenophobic rhetoric had put the Asian Americans and Pacific islanders at risk. He further slammed the American federal government for its role in excoriating the xenophobic sentiments through actions of political leaders. “Such statements have stoked unfounded fears and perpetuated stigma about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and have contributed to increasing rates of bullying, harassment, and hate crimes against AAPI persons,” he said.

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'Do not contribute to racism'

The memo also instructed executive departments and agencies to ensure that official actions, documents and statements “do not exhibit or contribute to racism, xenophobia, and intolerance against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders”. Earlier this month, the World Health Organisation sent a team of scientists to Wuhan to probe into the origins of the virus which has now spiraled out to infect 100,839,430 and kill 2,167,167 people across the globe.

While, the document did not refer to any political leader, however his predecessor used terms like “Wuhan virus”, “China plague” and “kung flu” to describe the disease caused by the new coronavirus, often being lambasted by China for spreading hatred. In contrast, Biden appreciated the contribution of Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders in the pandemic highlighting that nearly 2 million from the community offered their services as frontline health workers during the pandemic.

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Thiscomes as Biden announced that the government working on a plan to purchase additional 200 million doses of Coronavirus vaccines that have been authorised for emergency use. Notably, the country hit yet another grim milestone yesterday after crossing 25 million infections mark. Biden informed that his administration will increase overall weekly vaccination distribution to states and tribal territories from 8.6 million doses to a minimum of 10 million doses. This came up after the review of the current vaccine supply and manufacturing plans.