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#1086
pangcind
Participant

I think it’s interesting how labels and rhetoric stall the progress of disease. If the AIDS patients had not been labelled as Gay and Homophobia, they may have received treatment faster. Instead, they were viewed as “less deserving”. Again, going back to Dr. Rivkin-Fish’s lecture, we see society excluding certain groups of people and which people count as the “in-group” vs “out-group” In the COVID-19 crisis, it’s the Chinese that are being ostracized and experiencing xenophobia. Additionally, the President’s rhetoric, the fact that he undermined the virus in its infancy stalled the progress of testing and saved lives. Recently, he touted that “if you drink disinfectant, you can prevent the coronavirus”, which led to a record number of poison control calls in the NYC area. Bottom line: Words Matter.