Coronavirus: Wuhan natives in US unite to support their city during crisis
- Students and others organise donations to send medical supplies: ‘everyone is highly concerned and hopes they can contribute something’
- University students in New York also note a rise in xenophobic taunts and threats
The day after he avoided the Chinese government’s lockdown in Wuhan, Hubei province, Scott Liu was already planning on how he could support his hometown’s fight against the coronavirus from abroad.
Lucky enough to have boarded the last direct flight from Wuhan to New York on January 22 – just before travel bans were imposed to stop the spread of the virus that causes Covid-19 – Liu settled back into his home in Queens, New York, and began a 14-day period of self-quarantine.
In solitude, while reports of thousands of coronavirus cases began to overtake the news cycle, he started organising the overseas Wuhan-born community to donate to the city of 11 million, the epicentre of the Covid-19 outbreak.
“We just want to make a little effort for our hometown at this moment,” Liu said. “When a crisis so big we’ve never experienced before happened in Wuhan, everyone is highly concerned and hopes they can contribute something.”
Liu is one of thousands of Chinese in the US with attachments to Wuhan who have been jolted into action by the suffering of their friends and family back home.
Like many such Chinese, he is also alarmed by the treatment of his peers in the US who have become targets for xenophobic taunts and other threatening behaviour.
