Corona Daily 003: Flashback: Part Four

In February 2020, Ilaria Santi, a councillor in the Italian city of Prato, in Tuscany, visited the canteen of an elementary school. A Chinese school girl asked her: “Aren’t you afraid of sitting next to me?”

“Why should I be afraid?” asked the councillor.

“Afraid I infect you with the coronavirus.”

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In some Italian schools, Chinese children were now called ‘Cinavirus’, occasionally harassed and bullied. After the Diamond Princess, the outbreak in Italy was the big news. (I covered the Diamond Princess story in four parts: 1, 2, 3, and 4).

Why Italy, many had wondered. I had spoken to Antonio, my friend, who lives in Napoli. He was the first to describe to me what a lockdown was. A person could leave the house for absolutely essential things – but not without government permission. If an Italian wished to go to the chemist to buy medicines, he had to first fill a form online, send it to the ministry. If he got a positive response from the government, print the consent, and show it to the policeman on the road. India was still free when I spoke to Antonio. I wondered how an average poor Indian would seek ministerial consent on the internet.

Some 310,000 Chinese live in Italy, not including those who already are Italian citizens. The majority lives in the north, with large concentrations in Prato and Florence. Most of them are textile workers. Prato alone has over 30,000 Chinese working in the textile industry, without contracts, some part-time, some paid in cash, with limited or no access to social security. The fashion centers in Milan and Padova can’t run without Chinese workers. Many of the Italian Chinese had gone back home for the Chinese New Year.

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On the other side of the ocean, Chinese in America were already subjected to suspicion, ridicule and bullying. American history talks about people fixing blame for a contagious disease on outsiders. Swine flu was associated with Mexican Americans, SARS with Chinese Americans, HIV with Haitian Americans. AIDS was called the “4H disease” in America, the 4H referring to Haitians, homosexuals, haemophiliacs and heroin users.

Racism against the Chinese was, in fact, institutionalised in 1882, with the passing of the “Chinese Exclusion Act”. It provided for an absolute 10-year moratorium on any Chinese wanting to enter the USA. The Geary Act of 1892 required Chinese residents to register and obtain proof of residence or be kicked out of the country.

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The Chinese Lunar New Year festival witnesses a massive human migration. Chinese, living inside or outside China, travel back to their hometowns. Usually, they make close to 3 billion trips over the 40-day travel period (Chunyun). The timing of the emergence of the novel coronavirus was an ironic tragedy for the world, because it coincided with the Chinese New Year holiday.

About 5 million people left Wuhan, and travelled around China, went to Italy, USA and other parts of the world; before China imposed a travel ban on 23 Jan 2020. Criticism with hindsight is usually unfair, but in this case most evidence had pointed to a serious epidemic by December. Had China shown the ruthlessness it is capable of, and banned travel at the beginning of January, the pandemic could have been a stillborn baby.

This failure of the Chinese State resulted in a display of xenophobia in several countries. For a nation’s sins, its innocent citizens usually pay a price.

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On 31 January 2020, Britain, with its newly-acquired independence, brought home 83 British people from Wuhan in an air force plane and quarantined them. The first British to die was a cruise traveler on the Diamond Princess. Six days later, a woman in her 70s died in hospital in Berkshire. Covid-19 was no longer a story happening somewhere far.

The 8 March Guardian talked about British supermarkets starting to ration toilet paper, pasta, anti-bacterial wipes, hand soap and children’s medicines.

On 13 March, WHO declared Europe had become the epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic. Outside China, Europe had more cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined. Italy had Europe’s largest outbreak. By the second week of March, US and European news outlets were exhaustively covering the Covid-19 story. So much that it was difficult to find any news without the mention of the coronavirus.

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Ravi