"Living in China isn't the best thing right now." Daiyu thought. She was watching the daylit street from her room, her spherical face cupped in her hands. Just a few months ago, China was the center of economic growth, the place everyone wanted to go to get a good job, and the most well renowned place in the world. Now, people were treating it like a plague.
She browsed social media, and checked the comments on her recent post, a picture of herself hugging her dog.
"Keep the dog away. We don't want you eating it."
"Wear a mask."
"It's because of people like you that the corona virus is killing everyone."
She shut the phone in tears. That stupid corona virus. Stupid people. All of them. They just boycotted every Chinese out there.
She watched, as a man outside coughed into his elbow, and an immigrant nearby cowered and briskly walked away. She rolled over in her bed and grabbed a mask from her bedside. Her mother had told her to keep it there. She wore it over her face, and took another picture of herself. At that point, her dog walked in. She remembered when she first found out that some people think that Chinese eat dogs.
"They're crazy." she thought.
The corona virus isn't that deadly. Research shows that it has less than 3 percent chance of death. Even though people have died, so have they in the case of every disease. Many people have died of the flu even. Shutting China off was a wise choice in the sense that the virus won't spread until the cure gets developed, but there's no need to socially attack them. There are extremists in every group, and not all Chinese people eat weird animals, or contain germs. It's 2020, but we're just as racist.
Don't panic. The virus is dangerous, not deadly.