Saturday, February 15, 2020

Novel Coronavirus in Egypt : Time to address anti-Asian racism "Updated

In case you do not know, Egypt’s ministry of health and the World Health Organization declared in a joint statement that the first confirmed case of the Novel Coronavirus was detected in the country on Friday.

According to the details that surfaced later, a patient is a Chinese man who arrived in Cairo from China on Thursday and was spotted at Cairo International airport.

He was taken to the quarantine hospital aka Al-Nagila General Hospital in the border governorate to stay there for two weeks or till recovery according to the procedures.

The Quarantine section at 'Cairo International airport "AFP"
The Quarantine section at 'Cairo International airport
"AFP"
This is the first confirmed case in Africa and honestly earlier Friday I saw comic that Africa was the only Coronavirus continent and people were sharing that comic on Facebook to brag.
Here is the result of bragging.
Anyhow  I will speak now about something that bothers me.

A pharmacist in Zamalek bragged to my aunt on Friday that his pharmacy in the upscale neighborhood refuses to serve Asians !!

On the same day, I found out that Taxis and some Uber captains refuse to serve Asians for fear they turned to be Chinese.

On Saturday, I was shocked to know that a Chinese restaurant in Maadi said it explicitly that Chinese people were not allowed to dine in !!


The restaurant which is allegedly owned by a Chinese lady hanged announcements in Arabic, English and Chinese. Tweeps say that this restaurant is called "Genghis Khan"

According to what I have known the announcement in Chinese says that the Chinese people are not allowed to dine in but they can order delivery service !!

Maadi district hosts a considerable number of Chinese people

Similar accounts of racism against Asian people began to resurface online and offline.

It is not okay. I know that there is a huge wave of racism against Asians because of coronavirus but it is not right and it should be confronted.
The mainstream media and social media should play a role in stopping this toxic behavior.

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