Five years on, Chinese Canadians recall ridicule and racism over pandemic precautions

Another reminder. One of my memories was flying back from LA late January 2020 and we and Chinese were the only ones wearing a mask:

…Once the pandemic was officially underway, data would eventually emerge suggesting caution in Chinese communities had yielded results, notably in the Metro Vancouver community of Richmond, B.C.

The city’s population is 54 per cent ethnically Chinese, according to the 2021 census, making it the most Chinese city in North America.

More than two years into the pandemic, British Columbia’s COVID-19 case distribution report in July 2022 showed the city had an infection rate by far the lowest in the Lower Mainland, and less than half of that in nearby Surrey. In a colour-coded infection heat map from that time, Richmond stands out as a pale island, surrounded by more heavily infected neighbouring municipalities.

Zhang says he has no doubt why Richmond’s COVID-19 numbers were so low before the virus mutated and new variants resulted in much higher rate of spread worldwide.

“I believe the COVID-19 cases in the Chinese community were the lowest since we paid so much attention to the pandemic and we set up systems to protect ourselves from COVID-19,” he said.

Poutanen said the process of making health recommendations against a new, evolving virus was similar to shooting at a moving target.

Health officials in Canada initially recommended against mask use by healthy, asymptomatic individuals. That ran counter to what health officials were saying in China and Hong Kong.

“Initially the thought was (for) symptomatic masking, but general masking was not needed,” Poutanen said of the Canadian response.

“That was partly because the thought was symptomatic spread is predominantly how this was being transmitted, but that changed. I certainly think that no question, masking — the mask mandates and knowledge of what masking can do now — is one of the ongoing infection control measures that we continue to use that is effective.”

Wu and other Chinese community members pointed to memories of the SARS outbreak from 2002 to 2004 in Hong Kong and mainland China, where hundreds of people died, as the dominant factor in their response to COVID-19. SARS also killed more than 40 people in Canada.

Wu still winces at the thought of how she was treated in the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was just like it happened from yesterday,” Wu said, recalling being “the centre of attention” when she went masked and gloved into a grocery store, other shoppers “rolling their eyes.”…

Source: Five years on, Chinese Canadians recall ridicule and racism over pandemic precautions