Passengers wear masks as they arrive at the international arrivals area at the Vancouver International Airport in Richmond, B.C., Thursday, January 23, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

By rdnewsNOW staff

COMMUNITY

No concerns among Red Deer Chinese community over racism inspired by coronavirus

Feb 4, 2020 | 2:45 PM

The recent surge of novel coronavirus has led to concerns over racism towards the Chinese community in Calgary. But at this time there’s little worry those issues will be spilling over in Red Deer.

The Calgary Chinese Community Service Association (CCCSA) issued a statement over the weekend regarding the surge of racism and xenophobia.

“We urge Calgarians to remain calm and not direct misplaced concern towards Chinese-Canadian Calgarians. We must avoid demonizing the entire Calgary Chinese community, while remaining vigilant and careful,” the release said.

Red Deer City Councillor Frank Wong is a member of the Red Deer and District Chinese Community Society and says he hasn’t heard of any racism issues in the wake of the coronavirus.

“We don’t have an issue yet, or any way. We thought about it for Chinese New year celebrations last week. But we were aware of who’s holidaying (in China) and who’s not, and when they do come back, they’re supposed to quarantine themselves for two weeks.”

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In Red Deer, the Chinese population is much smaller than Calgary at about 700-900 people.

Wong says there’s no concern about contracting the illness in Red Deer.

“Just because it happened in China, doesn’t mean it’s over here as well.”

Councillor Lawrence Lee remembers the panic that ensued during the SARS outbreak in 2002, when Red Deer had a larger Chinese population, and says we have to learn from past experiences.

“We are a very inclusive society, and we have to look at when a country, a nation, is facing an unbelievable medical emergency and challenges, and we are there to support them. We have to stick up for our fellow man when it comes to things of this nature.”

Lee also reminds Red Deerians that there should be no concern about the virus reaching Central Alberta.

“The best we can do, there are no current reports of anybody in Alberta being impacted by Coronavirus, and also there’s also no real reason to expect that we would, given what Health Canada has done to put in precautions of travellers coming from China.”

Last week, Alberta Health Services raised their emergency response protocols to a level two out of four in response to the World Health Organization declaring Coronavirus a public health emergency.

Health Canada at this time is recommending to avoid all non-essential travel to China and all travel to the Hubei Province where the coronavirus originated.

(James Dunn with file from Josh Hall interview)