Gold Coast Griffith Asia Institute Professor Caitlin Byrne wades into Nerang barber’s ‘China virus’ sign as community supports the business owner
A controversial COVID-19 sign at a Gold Coast barber has polarised locals, and one expert warns there may be dire consequences as a result. HAVE YOUR SAY
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CONTROVERSY continues to shroud a Gold Coast barber’s decision to blame the ‘China virus’ for a reduction in trading hours, with a Griffith University academic emphasising the importance of using the correct terminology when referring to the coronavirus.
“When we’ve seen disease outbreak naming orientated towards a place, and we’ve seen it around the world and in the US, it can foster racism or embolden racist or xenophobia approaches towards certain groups of people,” said Professor Caitlin Byrne, Director of the Griffith Asia Institute.
“This issue has been picked up by the United Nations Secretary-General and the head of the World Health Organisation and they’ve released important guidelines and considerations that should be taken into account when naming a virus.”
Prof Byrne said using the proper terminology for the outbreak, such as COVID-19, was important to ensure an entire population or entire groups of people were not stigmatised, whether intentionally or not.
It comes as Nerang barber Chris Manning’s decision to post a sign on his shopfront blaming the ‘China virus’ for a reduction in trading hours received overwhelming support from the Bulletin and Courier Mail readers.
Of the nearly 4000 people who responded to a poll asking if they were offended by the ‘China virus’ sign, 85 per cent answered “no” they weren’t.
Hundreds of others threw their support behind Mr Manning, praising his “courage” and “guts” for not bowing down to “political correctness”. Dozens of readers said that because the virus originated in China they saw nothing wrong with calling it the ‘China virus’.
“China virus is the same as Spanish flu, country of origin,” wrote Tubby.
Meanwhile, a handful of others disagreed with using the term to describe COVID-19, with Susan saying: “I think the sign is inappropriate, racist and not at all Australian and that we should stick to calling it the coronavirus. This is not America after all”.
Ross said he was not offended by the sign but “it will provoke unreasoning actions against people of Asian descent”.
“I’m no lefty, but his sign is stupid. It’s coronavirus, not China virus. Stop making everyone think all old men are stuck in the 1950s,” wrote another reader.
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Mr Manning told the Bulletin he used the terminology because “that idiot in America Joe Biden banned” the use of it because of concerns the rhetoric was inciting violence against members of the Asian community.
“And 99 per cent of my customers look at it and agree with me,” he said.
Since the article was published, Mr Manning said the response he’d received was “fantastic, I’ve quite enjoyed it actually and my customers are most happy”.
“They know my sense of humour, it was only a joke. And I haven’t been abused.”
Mr Manning said he couldn’t understand why it was considered racist to call COVID-19 the China virus when it was completely fine to talk about the virus having UK and South African strains.
EARLIER
COAST BARBER STAUNCHLY DEFENDS A CONTROVERSIAL COVID SIGN
April 13
A NERANG barber has defended a sign on his shopfront blaming the “China virus” for a reduction in opening hours, pointing the finger at “lefties” for making a complaint about it.
But Bulletin readers have no issues with the sign.
Amazingly 86 per cent of voters in the poll asking if they were offended by the sign said they had no problem.
VOTE BELOW
Gold Coast’s official spokeswoman for the Chinese community had already slammed the message, saying similar signs in the US have led to a spike in anti-Asian hate crime.
Barber Chris Manning, who has specialised in “conservative men’s haircuts” for the past 36 years, said he could not believe someone would make a complaint about the notice.
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“I should have expected this, there are so many bleeding hearts around, everyone is just wrapped in cotton wool these days. They’re lefties, that’s all they are,” he said.
“I don’t care, and I’m not taking it down, I might even get a bigger one made because I actually wanted the words China virus in bigger letters but they put them in small ones.”
Mr Manning, who plans to retire soon, said he put the sign up after US President Joe Biden made it against the law to have such signs up because they were inciting violence.
“That idiot in America Joe Biden banned it, that’s why I put it up. And 99 per cent of my customers look at it and agree with me. It’s not big deal, what are they are they going to do, sue me?”
Mr Manning said he couldn’t understand why it was considered racist to call COVID-19 the China virus when it was completely fine to talk about the virus having UK and South African strains.
“The virus killed my business, and because most of my clients are old blokes, they’re too scared to come out and are waiting for the vaccine,” he said.
Debby Lo-Dean, the official spokeswoman for the Gold Coast Chinese Community said she was “very sorry to hear that the barber’s business has dropped significantly” but that his rhetoric was potentially harmful.
“When a man in the US coined that phrase it was used to divide people and a country, it has caused a massive increase in anti-Asian hate crime resulting in deaths and very disturbing attacks on Asian elderly,” she said.
“We are Australia and we don’t want to follow the US and see that here.”
Mrs Lo-Dean, a fifth generation Australia, said she’d done extensive research on studies from overseas and many found that COVID-19 popped up in many countries at the same time, according to sewerage samples from 2018-2020.
She said there was growing evidence that the COVID-19 virus may not have originated from wet markets in China’s central city of Wuhan.
“It was China that first published that there was a new virus. This is why I think so many countries are still in a bad way,” she said.
“My friend caught COVID-19 in December 2019 in Los Angeles but the US didn’t admit to having it until February. They said it was a really bad flu.”
Her friend was tested and it was later confirmed he had the COVID antibodies from December 2019.
Mrs Lo-Dean added that last year doctors at a Paris hospital found evidence than an ill patient admitted in December 2019 was already infected with COVID-19, with no known association or recent travel to China.
“COVID-19 was already spreading in France in late December 2019, a month before the official first cases in the country,” the team at Groupe Hospitalier Paris Seine in Saint-Denis wrote in a study published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents.
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