Page - 395 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
Image of the Page - 395 -
Text of the Page - 395 -
395Spread
of Anti-Asian Racism: Prevention and Critical Race Analysis in Pandemic Planning
disease is an important strategy in controlling transmission.1 As public
health researchers have stated, “Persons who are feared and stigmatized
may delay seeking care and remain in the community undetected.”2
The experiences of Asian Canadians in the COVID-19 outbreak
have brought into sharp focus the differentiated risks, vulnerability,
and marginalization of racialized persons, both generally and in a
health crisis. Before implementing measures to control the spread of
emerging infectious diseases, public health officials must contemplate
how those responses may be experienced differently by racialized
persons. Part of this evaluation includes considering how law, policy,
and discourse may racialize a disease and conversely, how people
may be “treated as pathogens.”3 Further, in seeking to address public
fear about the spread of disease, decision makers should evaluate to
what extent strategies address the aim of reducing transmission or
appease and/or promote public perceptions (sometimes racist percep-
tions) of how diseases spread.
This chapter provides a preliminary account of the racism expe-
rienced by Asian Canadians and calls for a robust race-based analysis
of public health measures. While this chapter focuses on the partial
border closure as a case study, I invite others to apply a critical race
analysis to Canada’s other responses to the pandemic.
The selective but simultaneous inclusion and exclusion of per-
sons at the border has constructed social ideas of a foreign or Asian
virus and affected how Canadians perceive the spread of the virus
and the valid ways to limit its transmission. The federal government’s
border measures “selectively include” some persons, including tem-
porary foreign workers to work in essential services, while “selec-
tively excluding” others. This chapter posits that this partial border
closure somewhat serves to pacify the wider public’s fears and anxi-
ety regarding Asian people as vectors of the virus, and raises ques-
tions about not only the efficacy of border restrictions but how it may
perpetuate racist discourse in Canada.
It is too early to fully assess the extent to which border restric-
tions were and are effective in stemming the spread of COVID-19.
1. Bobbie Person et al, “Fear and Stigma: The Epidemic within the SARS Outbreak”
(2004) 10:2 Emerging Infections Diseases 358 at 358 [Person et al].
2. Ibid.
3. Gerald Chan, “The Virus of Anti-Asian Prejudice”, The Star (13 April 2020), online:
<www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/04/13/the-virus-of-anti-asian-
prejudice.html>.
VULNERABLE
The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Title
- VULNERABLE
- Subtitle
- The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19
- Authors
- Vanessa MacDonnell
- Jane Philpott
- Sophie Thériault
- Sridhar Venkatapuram
- Publisher
- Ottawa Press
- Date
- 2020
- Language
- English
- License
- CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
- ISBN
- 9780776636429
- Size
- 15.2 x 22.8 cm
- Pages
- 648
- Categories
- Coronavirus
- International