SAN ANTONIO, May 13, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — The city council of San Antonio, Texas voted unanimously last week to pass a resolution condemning “hate speech,” including use of the name “China virus” to refer to COVID-19, which came from China.
“COVID-19 is a public health issue, not a racial, religious or ethnic one, and the deliberate use of terms such as ‘Chinese virus’ or ‘Kung Fu virus’ to describe COVID-19 only encourages hate crimes and incidents against Asians and further spreads misinformation at a time when communities should be working together to get through this crisis,” the resolution declares, as reported by The Texan.
Only one community member showed up to comment on the proposal, local conservative activist Jack Finger. He asked it it would be similarly “discriminating” to use the name “West Nile virus” and used a pair of binoculars to theatrically identify council members who weren’t wearing masks. Councilor Manny Pelàez later dismissed Finger’s comments as “bad dinner theater.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) condemned the resolution as “nuts,” pointing out that the mainstream media routinely referred to COVID-19 by its place of origin until left-wing activists decided that doing so was “problematic”:
This is NUTS. SA City Council behaving like a lefty college faculty lounge, triggered by Chick-fil-A & the words “Wuhan virus.” If they want to investigate someone, start with NYT & CNN who both repeatedly (and rightly) referred to it as “the Chinese coronavirus.” #NoSpeechPolice https://t.co/a10BZAvleQ
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 7, 2020
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Contrary to claims that the “Chinese virus” name is motivated by race, it is common practice to name infectious diseases after the places where they were discovered. Further, those who insist on doing so for COVID-19 are often motivated by a desire to hold the Chinese government accountable for unleashing the virus on the world and then covering it up.
The San Antonio City Council is no stranger to championing left-wing causes, from approving a Planned Parenthood expansion in excess of city zoning laws to blacklisting Chick-fil-A from the Texas San Antonio International Airport for the company’s biblical view of marriage and sexuality.
As of May 13, the United States is estimated to have seen more than 1.4 million cases of COVID-19, with almost 85,000 deaths and more than 307,000 recoveries, although mounting evidence suggests far more of the public has contracted and recovered from the virus than the official count indicates. At the same time, state bans on “non-essential” activity across the country have caused massive job losses, with more than 33 million Americans filing for unemployment and studies predicting that tens of thousands of small businesses that have closed down will never reopen.
Other medical experts argue that the evidence warrants a strategy more narrowly targeted toward protecting the elderly and immunocompromised while allowing the younger and healthier to go about their lives. “If we focus on the elderly, we will bring a death rate that is likely no more than 1% down to fractions of a percent,” says Dr. Donald Yealy, chair of emergency medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.