Eversince the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, fear and disgust about the ways'Asian' people eat, has been the biggest racist tropes on the Internet.?
It first started with a video of a woman eating a bowl of'Bat Soup' - many wrongly linked the video to the way the virus actually startedspreading among people.?
The video was actually that of a local internet celebrity, Wang Mengyun, hosting an online travel show, but her video of eating the soupwas wrongly linked to the outbreak, after speculations of bats having caused thedisease was considered a possibility.?
Now again, another old video from 2018 has triggered thesame pattern of 'disgust' among people. The video this time shows a manconsuming a pate of?Vietnamese delicacy called Coconut worms, which isactually yellow Larva.
In the video, a man wearing a white t-shirt and holdingchopsticks in his hands picks up the moving worms out of the bowl and puts itin his mouth.?
The video posted by media outlet?The Sun?carried thefollowing caption, 'Would you ever eat something that's still moving on theplate?' and it triggered a chain of unwarranted fear-mongering about how thevirus was caused by 'dirty eating' habits.?
The latest global outbreak has vilified all Asianpeople, especially triggering a spate of anti-Chinese sentiments. In India, somepeople are so scared of the virus that many are avoiding buying any productthat has a Made In China tag on eat, Some?have even stopped consuming Chinesefood.?
Most of these fears are misplaced and the consequences offake information being circulated on various social media platforms. At times likethis, it's important to educate those who hold such preconceived notions andmake sure they are informed about the right things.?
Currently, China has reported?76,936 infectionsand?2,442 deaths.?Accordingto available data, the disease remains mild in 80 percent of patients andsevere or critical in 20 percent. The virus has been fatal in 2 percent ofreported cases.