There have been many encouraging stories about people’s acts of generosity and kindness during the COVID-19 crisis. Unfortunately, human nature also has its downsides, and the crisis has brought out some of our worst qualities, adding xenophobia, racism and, in some cases, violence.
Hate crimes against Asian Americans and Asian immigrants in the United States have increased. They range from verbal harassment to denial of service to physical assault. There’s no way to know to what extent President Trump’s insistence on calling COVID-19 the “China virus” would possibly have motivated those acts, but in fact it didn’t help save them. It is true that the Chinese government has acted abysmally, first of all, denying that the virus can be transmitted from one user to another. But China is not really a democracy, and the Chinese have been the victims rather than the perpetrators of this cover-up.
Indeed, Asian Americans and Asian immigrants in the United States deserve our thanks for their role in responding to the COVID-19 crisis. First, they are overrepresented among frontline medical personnel treating inflamed people. Together, 17% of physicians, 9% of physician assistants, and nearly 10% of nurses are of Asian descent.
Asians and Asian Americans are also at the forefront of U. S. efforts. The U. S. government is working to find a vaccine. Right now, one of the most promising efforts has just been reported by the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. On April 2, the University reported:
“Scientists announced a prospective vaccine opposed to SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 pandemic. When tested in mice, the vaccine, delivered through a finger-length patch, produces vaccines specific to SARS-CoV-2. antibodies in amounts considered sufficient to neutralize the virus.
This is smart news indeed. Who is it?Two of the lead authors are Eun Kim and Shaohua Huang, both members of the medical faculty.
The main Asian-American contributions to the fight against COVID-19 are limited to the medical profession. Asian immigrants and Asian-Americans also make up a giant portion of the high-tech workforce. Now that American businesses and educators rely almost entirely on corporations like Dropbox, DocuSign, and especially Zoom, the contributions of Asians and Asian Americans have never been greater.
Zoom CEO Eric Yuan weighed in extensively. As Forbes’ Alex Konrad reported, Yuan has donated countless amounts of loose facilities to American schools. The fact that our students remain informed during this crisis is largely the result of Yuan’s generosity. It is true that there have been court cases about “Zoom-bombing” and privacy issues, Zoom is handling those issues, and the fact that it has been able to successfully continue to operate an exponential and absolutely unforeseen expansion in demand has been a huge credit to this country.
Perhaps a smart way to end this article is to point out that next month is Asia-Pacific American Heritage Month. Hopefully, COVID-19 will be in decline in May (the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation recently predicts that, nationally, COVID-19 deaths will peak in mid-April). Perhaps May will be the month when concern begins to subside, and instead of blaming Asians and Asian Americans, we will acknowledge their disproportionate role in fighting the pandemic.