An Asian woman was subjected to a tirade of racist abuse on a train in New York City amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Elen Chen filmed the remarks after another man stepped in to defend her. In the footage, which has been circulating on social media, the man can be heard shouting "You’re Chinese, why did you bring corona to America." He then becomes incensed after realizing he is being filmed, and begins walking after Chen with his cane raised. The clip ends without showing how the interaction ended.
This comes after New York's mayor, Bill de Blasio, spoke about a surge of "unacceptable" discrimination against Asian communities in the wake of the coronavirus. Last week, the New York City Human Rights Commission announced that it is currently looking into five instances of COVID-19-fueled xenophobia, per the New York Post.
Watch the footage of the incident below:Governer, Andrew Cuomo, also said that he was "disgusted" by an incident in Midtown New York - where a woman punched an unmasked Asian woman, while shouting "Where is your corona mask, you Asian b*tch" - stating that the incident was "apparently motivated by the bigoted notion that an Asian person is more likely to carry or transmit the novel coronavirus," per the Metro.
Earlier this month, another man was filmed spraying an Asian train passenger with Febreze air freshener. He was heard shouting, "I don’t want him under me! Tell him to move," before spraying in the direction of the passenger.
President Donald Trump received widespread criticism after referring to COVID-19 as the "Chinese virus". He has, however, since denied that his use of the term was "racist". Speaking at his daily coronavirus taskforce briefing on Wednesday, he said "'Cause it comes from China. It's not racist at all, no, not at all. It comes from China, that's why. I want to be accurate," per CNN.
"I have great love for all of the people from our country, but as you know China tried to say at one point ... that it was caused by American soldiers. That can't happen. It's not gonna happen, not as long as I'm President. It comes from China."
At the time of writing, per the World Health Organization, there have been 209,839 cases of COVID-19, and 8,778 confirmed deaths.
