Pandemic unleashes ‘tsunami of hate’
He appealed for an end to the “tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scaremongering”.
The UN is urging governments, companies and billionaires to contribute to a $6.7bn (£5.4bn) appeal to fight coronavirus in poor countries, warning that failure to help could cause a “hunger pandemic”, famine, riots and conflict.
Worldwide, the virus has infected more than 3.8 million people and killed over 268,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University based on official data.
But everywhere, limited testing, differences in counting the dead and concealment by some governments undoubtedly mean the true scale of
THE coronavirus pandemic keeps unleashing “a tsunami of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scaremongering”, UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said.
He appealed yesterday for “an allout effort to end hate speech globally”.
Mr Guterres said “anti-foreigner sentiment has surged, anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have spread, and Covid-19-related anti-Muslim attacks have occurred”.
He said migrants and refugees “have been vilified as a source of the virus and then denied access to medical treatment”.
“With older persons among the most vulnerable, contemptible memes have emerged suggesting they are the most expendable,” he said.
“And journalists, whistleblowers, the pandemic is much greater.
This week, University of Washington researchers nearly doubled their projection of deaths in the US to about 134,000 through to early August, largely because the loosening of stayat-home restrictions will mean the virus spreads to more people.
As governments grapple with when to restart their economies, the Trump administration shelved a 17-page Centres for Disease Control and Prevention document with step-by-step advice to help local authorities do it safely. Adding to pressure to ease restrictions are the hundreds of businesses collapsing by the day.
More than 33 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits health professionals, aid workers and human rights defenders are being targeted simply for doing their jobs.”
Mr Guterres called on political leaders to show solidarity with all people, on educational institutions to focus on “digital literacy” at a time when “extremists are seeking to prey on captive audiences”.
He called on the media, especially social media, to “remove racist, misogynist and other harmful content”, on civil society to strengthen their outreach to vulnerable people, and on religious figures to serve as “models of mutual respect”.
“And I ask everyone to stand up against hate, treat each other with dignity and spread kindness,” he said.
The secretary-general stressed that Covid-19 “does not care who we are, over the past seven weeks, and a highly anticipated report on Friday is expected to show US joblessness as high as 16%, a level not seen since the Great Depression nearly a century ago. Public health experts say the guidance from the White House has been anything but clear, while pushing responsibility for expanding testing onto the states.
It’s like “an orchestra without a conductor,” said Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University.
States share some blame, he said, but “the responsibility for co-ordinating and enforcing and implementing a national plan comes from the White House”. where we live, what we believe or about any other distinction”.
His global appeal to address and counter Covid-19-related hate speech follows his April 23 message calling the pandemic “a human crisis that is fast becoming a human rights crisis”.
Mr Guterres said then that the pandemic has seen “disproportionate effects on certain communities, the rise of hate speech, the targeting of vulnerable groups, and the risks of heavy-handed security responses undermining the health response”.
With “rising ethno-nationalism, populism, authoritarianism and a pushback against human rights in some countries, the crisis can provide a pretext to adopt repressive measures unrelated to the pandemic”, he warned.