Hate for people based on variant

[allmixedup12]

Before I start, for context I am a mixed race brit with British-Indian parents. I live in London and think it is an incredible place to be able to live and work.

Here is my issue - My father recently died of COVID19 in India, so I rushed from the UK to Delhi to be with my mom. It was sudden and devastating, and we are slowly trying to heal. However, we are grateful he did not suffer for long and have tried to make sense of it all. The situation in the country is truly appalling with so many senseless deaths. I am with my mother as long as it will take to help her heal and then return to the UK. Dont worry I have already recovered from COVID and wont pose a risk to anyone back home!

However, I have recently noticed a trend in the UK media which I find very disturbing and it is making me very uncomfortable to read some articles. Soon after the pandemic took force in India in April, the UK government put India on the red list, which I guess was understandable to protect the public health. UK was one of the first countries to do this, well ahead of the US and many european countries. So while the UK media goes to town on Johnson and co, they were reasonably fast compared to most others.

However, i note that my iphone news feed from most major news outlets - BBC, The telegraph and guardian - have a constant stream of articles about "indian variant" - the tone of many articles smacks of racism to me and it is really bothering me.

Travel restrictions aside, more recently the amount of media noise and articles quoting the "indian variant" as the source of all evil in the UK seems to be rife. Little known detail is that the increase in many parts of the UK has nothing to do with this variant as clarified here - www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-variants-genomically-confirmed-case-numbers/variants-distribution-of-cases-data

This feels very much like a vitrolic building up against Indian-origin people to me. I guess chinese/east asian origin people may have felt this way in Feb/March 20.

Sure, there is a variant and it was first detected in India. But there is so much media reporting which constantly keeps talking the variant as being Indian, it is almost as if the Indians all got together and came up with a variant to make the worlds life a misery (rest assured it is hurting people in India more than anyone else).

The WHO have also cautioned against naming variants in this manner because it is accusatory to the country where it is first detected - it could easily have been imported into the country from elsewhere.

On top of this, why call the variants as "Indian" or "Brazilian" but the virus is not called "Chinese". Two wrongs do not make a right, so i do not think it should be the Chinese virus, but I also think "Indian variant" demonizes Indians, "Brazilian variant" demonizes Brazilians. I am also curious why the variants detected in the UK are named according to local areas such as "Kent" but not british. Ironically, I live in Kent.

There is also no sympathy for British citizens who have ties to India and who have no choice but to travel to India to fulfil their duties as sons/daughters/grandchildren/nieces/nephews etc. So many people went to India to care/grieve for their dying/dead family members - and the media seems to be baying for blood as if to never let those brits ever come back to the UK and close the shutters. See article below as context

www.lbc.co.uk/news/revealed-over-100-direct-flights-from-india-landed-in-uk-since-country-was-place/

Sure many brits may not have international ties, but so many people who live in the UK do - it is such an extraordinarily global place. In this day and age, how can people act as if having the necessity to travel abroad is frivolous should somehow be stopped/punished and it is somehow bad...brits do not come in one shape and size i.e. white british with all family in buckhingamshire ffs

Just feel completely disillusioned. is this how you all feel about the news reporting/general feel on social media or AIBU?

@NicolastuffedoneNope. We are two siblings, I live in London and my brother in the US - ironically, he an infectious diseases doctor and has been involved in the pandemic fight, so could not stay with her long as he had patients back in the US

Her parents passed away a while back, she has one surviving sibling - That sibling is currently suspected to have cancer and hence shielding...

In any case...I am sure many people have been in equally difficult situations and my aim is not to say we are in a unique position. We are lucky to be alive and I am very grateful now for this.

I think these kind of situations only hit home when you are in the middle of it. Perspective on the pandemic changes completely.

Poor soul...💐

I'm so sorry for your loss

I am South African, and although I haven't been back in years, I felt a bit crap when all the 'South African variant' news was in the headlines. It felt like a personal attack for some reason at a time when things were so dire for many back in SA. I didn't let it bother me too much though.

I can understand why you feel so strongly though OP, especially having lost your dad and returned back to India at this time, wishing you and your family much strength during this awful time.

@allmixedup12 I'm really sorry for your died. I lost DM last year April to the first wave.
I'm sure it was very raw.
If I've heard anything about the Indian variants it is pity for the devastation racing through the land it is heartbreaking.

*So sorry meant Dad above.

I was wrong in what I posted yesterday. I read a study that said AZ was 88% effective against the Indian variant, but I see that it has been revised downwards to 60%. Still trying to process this news now. I think India will be on the red list for a very long time.

OP, I am in the same position as you, btw. Only one other sibling and we are both away from India, where my mother lives alone. But I have signed up for a medical service in India which helps my mother.

Sorry not read the thread but wanted to say one can understand the great fear when one learns news such as - 500 doctors are dying a day of Covid ; the people dying are so numerous they cannot all be cremated i.e. many dead bodies photographed in rivers and also eyes are being removed because of a ''black virus''? cause by this strain that can attack brain etc - in India. Horrific.

That should be ''black bacteria'' I think.

OP, so sorry about your Dad.

I do agree that the naming of variants has not been helpful. Because we live in a society where xenophobia and racism exist, because it is divisive, etc.

It is also unscientific. A virus doesn’t know or care where it mutates and the geography is irrelevant except for looking at how we control hot spots, wherever they may be.

But.

The travel situation in and out of this country has been scandalous. There is a video made by Led By Donkeys (which is actually critically comparing Priti Patel’s approach to ‘protecting our borders’ against migrants and refugees whilst not protecting our borders against the virus, so far from racist in direction), which details the huge numbers of visitors and returning citizens from trips, every day over the last year, largely unmonitored.

This does not sit well when here so many have been stopped from travelling to funerals, relatives dying in care homes etc.

When the barrier came down on flights from India, the media (Guardien / BBC, not the rabid right wing press) featured many stories of people stranded trying to get home to the UK. Some had travelled to India for family weddings. At a time when here a big family wedding was illegal. And travel to even a few miles away was banned in England in January for most social purposes.

The Gvts lax stance on this has fuelled resentment and xenophobia at a time when we need more cohesion and pulling together.

On an individual level I am pleased you have been able to support your Mum.

On a global and strategic level I think travel needed to have been much more closely regulated and reduced.

Loads of diseases are named after places - Zika, Ebola, Lassa, Spanish Flu, German Measles and the Kent Varient, the Brazilian variety, Indian varient etc. etc.

I am very sorry for the loss of your father but it does mean that you of all people should understand the need to restrict movement in order to protect others from the same trauma.

You're not exactly being "hung out.to.dry"

The border restrictions and quarantine are not to punish you but to protect the wider community and what's wrong with that? Hardly any countries are on the green list and even the UK is ironically on the amber list!

@tara66 I think its a fungus

@UpTheJunktion

OP, so sorry about your Dad.

I do agree that the naming of variants has not been helpful. Because we live in a society where xenophobia and racism exist, because it is divisive, etc.

It is also unscientific. A virus doesn’t know or care where it mutates and the geography is irrelevant except for looking at how we control hot spots, wherever they may be.

But.

The travel situation in and out of this country has been scandalous. There is a video made by Led By Donkeys (which is actually critically comparing Priti Patel’s approach to ‘protecting our borders’ against migrants and refugees whilst not protecting our borders against the virus, so far from racist in direction), which details the huge numbers of visitors and returning citizens from trips, every day over the last year, largely unmonitored.

This does not sit well when here so many have been stopped from travelling to funerals, relatives dying in care homes etc.

When the barrier came down on flights from India, the media (Guardien / BBC, not the rabid right wing press) featured many stories of people stranded trying to get home to the UK. Some had travelled to India for family weddings. At a time when here a big family wedding was illegal. And travel to even a few miles away was banned in England in January for most social purposes.

The Gvts lax stance on this has fuelled resentment and xenophobia at a time when we need more cohesion and pulling together.

On an individual level I am pleased you have been able to support your Mum.

On a global and strategic level I think travel needed to have been much more closely regulated and reduced.

I agree - students were quoted as going home to see family, others were visiting family, others were attending weddings. Not just to India but other countries with high rates of infection. Non-essential travel was banned. I have friends nearby who had family visitors from the USA for Christmas when rates there were much higher than here.

The government handling of travel has been abysmal and can only have added to the spread of the virus.

@UpTheJunktion

OP, so sorry about your Dad.

I do agree that the naming of variants has not been helpful. Because we live in a society where xenophobia and racism exist, because it is divisive, etc.

It is also unscientific. A virus doesn’t know or care where it mutates and the geography is irrelevant except for looking at how we control hot spots, wherever they may be.

But.

The travel situation in and out of this country has been scandalous. There is a video made by Led By Donkeys (which is actually critically comparing Priti Patel’s approach to ‘protecting our borders’ against migrants and refugees whilst not protecting our borders against the virus, so far from racist in direction), which details the huge numbers of visitors and returning citizens from trips, every day over the last year, largely unmonitored.

This does not sit well when here so many have been stopped from travelling to funerals, relatives dying in care homes etc.

When the barrier came down on flights from India, the media (Guardien / BBC, not the rabid right wing press) featured many stories of people stranded trying to get home to the UK. Some had travelled to India for family weddings. At a time when here a big family wedding was illegal. And travel to even a few miles away was banned in England in January for most social purposes.

The Gvts lax stance on this has fuelled resentment and xenophobia at a time when we need more cohesion and pulling together.

On an individual level I am pleased you have been able to support your Mum.

On a global and strategic level I think travel needed to have been much more closely regulated and reduced.

Excellent post summing up how many of us feel about movement between countries for weddings etc when there have been such strict measures on not attending them in our own country.

This is the Led By Donkeys video www.facebook.com/374151396735323/videos/1169825336775126

It contains some truly shocking statistics about air passengers coming into this country. At a time when more than a thousand people a day were dying and the country was in lockdown 100k people a week were coming untested on flights into the UK.

An interesting watch, as this scandal of international travel unfolded between last year and the current regulations.

And so it continues. Travel to 'Amber ' countries is not permitted for holidays, only for urgent business travel and family emergencies, and yet the airlines and holiday companies will facilitate everyone getting excited about a holiday. . Will the Gvt check that those who flock to the Algarve have self isolated for 10 days once they get home? Properly isolate, not even going to the shops? Of course they won't.

I'm very sorry for your loss, but I think you might be being a bit over-sensitive about this. I think that most people understand that the "Indian variant" means that it first came from India and don't blame the Indian people. I live in the US and what you guys know as the Kent Variant is known as the UK variant here. Nobody is blaming Britons for it.

I haven't rtft but people of East Asian descent were/still are discriminated horribly as a result of Covid19. A lot of racist comments were made and people starting to blame anyone that is of East Asian ethnicity.
Not least by Trump at the time calling it a Chinese virus, kung flu and all sorts. A lot of Chinese restaurants and takeaways and even vietnamese ones are still being shunned now. So OP in your first post about why it's not called the Chinese virus, that comment is really really insensitive.

@PickleCabbage I did not say that Covid19 should be called the Chinese virus - I said the exact opposite of that. Exactly because it leads people to associating east asian communities with a disease and becoming prejudiced. And I said the same principle should be applied to the variants.

@UpTheJunktion I have no issues with there being a quarantine system as I have said in previous posts. It makes sense.

@allmixedup12

Your post questions why it wasn't called the Chinese virus when the media is reporting on the 'Indian' variant at the moment. You said two wrongs don't make a right and yet you bring this up in your original post. That reads to me as incredibly insensitive and there was no need to bring that up. You are implicitly justifying that because the media is calling it the Indian variant then why wasn't it be called the Chinese virus. Except it was! And the East Asian community has been attacked horrendously ( in quite a few cases physically and beaten up and that was in London which is meant to be a relatively diverse city) so for this comparison to come through is unnecessary.

@PickleCabbage I said it was not right to call it the chinese virus.

I feel for those discriminated against but i don't understand what you're on about. I am not justifying any such thing.

Since calling it a chinese virus is obviously racist, people have stopping doing that - or at least i dont see it happening. calling it an indian variant is not overtly racist to those who dont feel the undertones, so it is considered OK to do it. But the parallel is obvious.

This makes no sense. Why is it racist to name a variant after where it originated? It's just a descriptive term. If you want to point fingers I am referring to these latest variants as the Boris one and the Eton one.

Flights to and from India should have been banned straight away. The only reason they were not was 'trade jaunt' Johnson wanted. Flights to Bangladesh and Pakistan were banned.

You should not allow free travel into and from a high risk country - it's madness.

Seriously OP get off Facebook & Twitter, both places are a cesspit for people with an agenda to use anything against anyone they deem as an 'undesirable'. Ditto LBC, they used to be one of my favourite radio stations only to be hijacked by a few closet racists (they employed Nigel Farage until recently). These places are a magnet such people and you don't need their toxicity whilst you are grieving.

Now the covid virus that caused the global pandemic, wasn't managed in the early stages when it could have been prevented until it was too late as you know. This of course angered many folk.
Understandably calling it a Chinese virus meant that some nutjobs started physically attacking people of East Asian origin so of course it is correctly referred to as Covid-19.

Now the variants of that virus will appear from around the globe and there are more to come. The current 'variant of concern' will keep changing so for ease, authorities and the media call it South African, Brazilian, Indian etc as the average Joe Public would not be able to differentiate between B.1.617.2 and B.1.351 for example whereas absolutely everyone knows what Covid-19 is.

The Kent variant as far as I know is only known as that in the UK because whereas we know where Kent is, most of the rest of the world would not be able to point out Kent on a map so therefore they would refer to it as 'the British variant'.

Yes there is a minority in the UK who find it very hard to understand how if your only dependent is in India and in ill health, how you may need to fly over there as you have no choice. I know zero people who would had even considered going there for a wedding but there may have been very few. These are British types who would call themselves an 'expat' (not an immigrant mind) had they relocated to Spain and would think of nothing of coming back to use the NHS but there you go. Ignore these types, again a minority.

Most people as a pp said are full of sympathy to what is going on in India and it's reminded all of us that we're not home free yet (you can see in the long queues for covid jabs). Hope your mum makes a full recovery and you have a safe journey back.

It’s not specifically about ‘flights from India’. Specifying flights from any particular country just

It hasn’t just been a tiny number of people with extreme family circumstances who have been travelling in and out. 15,000 a day since March 2020???

India, Dubai, Turkey, Dubai, S America... any country that didn’t close its own borders

Quarantining could only have worked had it really only been a tiny minority of people who travelled for extreme circumstances. The issue, OP, is not quarantining. It is the sheer numbers travelling.

While a family in Brixton were not allowed to be with their 13 year old son who died alone of COVID in hospital due to lockdown within the country.

And of the 128,000 families grieving in the UK, families of the S Asian diaspora, like that family in Brixton, are disproportionately represented. The lax attitude to international travel has served them worst of all.

I have huge sympathy for those with families an ocean and a continent away. But the lack of regulation by Gvt has caused countless deaths, and the response the OP notes.

Tragedy upon layer of tragedy.

We had the Kent variant. No vitriol against people from Kent. Viruses mutate where they do this is relevant to prevent spread. Sorry for your loss.

I'm so sorry for the loss of your Dad!

Naming this variant 'the indian variant' doesn't really carry any negative associations for Brits. I know that the Kent variant has been referred to as the 'UK variant' in lots of other countries too- it's just the easiest way to identify variants.