Back in March President Trump defended his action calling the Coronavirus the “Chinese Virus. There is growing criticism that the phrase is racist and anti-Chinese. In response, President Trump said, “It’s not racist at all, it comes from China, that’s why” (Rogers). Although this name may seem harmless, the names of diseases have great repercussions. History shows that naming them has many ethical consequences.
During the current coronavirus pandemic, a small and ignorant minority, influenced by announcements of the “Chinese coronavirus” or “Wuhan coronavirus,” has targeted Asians and even Asian-Americans as potential scapegoats. Because of this, there has been a recent spike in hate crime against Asians and Asian Americans. With the resources we have and looking back historically, we know the importance and repercussions of naming diseases. None of these incidences should have happened, but the hate against Asians and Asian-Americans could have been easily avoided (Cheshire). Not only is there an increase in racism in the united states, but also around the world. In the UK, incidents of xenophobia and racist harassment against Chinese have significantly increased. A recent poll into racism suggests that 76% of ethnic Chinese have experienced a direct racial slur (Gao).
Despite not originating in Spain, the 1918 influenza pandemic is commonly known as the “Spanish flu” a name that reflects a tendency in public health history to associate new infectious diseases with foreign nationals and foreign countries. These potentially stigmatizing perceptions can have more than just psychological effects. They can inform how authorities and the public respond to a particular epidemic (Hoppe).
Naming infectious diseases after geographical locations or associated nationalities has the unintended consequence of potentially stigmatizing entire groups of people who are in no way at fault for the disease. During the outbreaks of the Great Bubonic Plague or Black Death, which took the lives of up to half of the European population in the 14th century, some blamed the Jews on the theory that they poisoned the wells. Fear then drove a wave of persecution, including massacres. Another example of racial prejudice occurred in 1892 in New York City following outbreaks of cholera and typhus as officials applied a selective quarantine to Jewish immigrants.
To prevent any negative repercussions, the Word Health Organization came up with guidelines for naming new human diseases. The World Health Organization strongly encourages scientists, national authorities, the national and international media, and other stakeholders to follow the best practices set out in this document when naming a human disease. When naming diseases, it is strongly encouraged to give names that include generic descriptive terms, specific descriptive terms, casual pathogen and associated descriptors, year of first detection or reporting, and Arbitrary identifier. Disease names should not include Geographic locations: cities, countries, regions, continents, people’s names, cultural, population, industry or occupational references, and terms that incite undue fear (World Health Organization). The World Health Organization announced an official name for the disease that is causing the 2019 coronavirus outbreak. The new name of this disease is coronavirus disease 2019, abbreviated as COVID-19. In COVID-19, ‘CO’ stands for ‘corona,’ ‘VI’ for ‘virus,’ ‘D’ for disease, and the ‘19’ for the year.
Works Cited
Gao, G, Sai, L. Opposing the toxic apartheid: The painted veil of the COVID‐19 pandemic, race and racism. Gender Work Organ. 2020; 1– 7. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12523
Hoppe, Trevor. “The American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) from the American Public Health Association (APHA) Publications.” “Spanish Flu”: When Infectious Disease Names Blur Origins and Stigmatize Those Infected, 2018, ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2018.304645
Rogers, Katie, et al. “Trump Defends Using ‘Chinese Virus’ Label, Ignoring Growing Criticism.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 18 Mar. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/us/politics/china-virus.html
William P. Cheshire. “The Ethics of Naming Epidemics.” 2020. PDF file. https://www.questia.com/library/journal/1P4-2442119420/the-ethics-of-naming-epidemics
World Health Organization. “World Health Organization Best Practices for the Naming of New Human Infectious Diseases.” 2015. PDF file. https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/163636/WHO_HSE_FOS_15.1_eng.pdf
