Assignment #2

Kimberly A. Pando Solano 2020010129

"Populist logic" describes a storytelling technique, a way of fitting things into a certain
narrative about the world. It shows a narrative framework with recognizable actors, into
which a politic agenda can be slotted.

At first, many prominent leaders started off by dismissing the virus; calling the outbreak a
'hoax' or 'not what mainstream media makes it out to be'. They completely shut down all the
reliable sources and scientific reality. Instead, they reinforced measures such as border
enclosure and in European countries suspending all flights from East Asia. Once the
declaration of national emergency was imminent, political leaders began to take ideological
rather than practical measures based on evidence of science.

Said measures were based around race. Historical events such as H1N1 and dengue were
commonly linked to specific places around the globe, this connection later translated into
apathy and fear toward those groups of people. This means we, as a society, place our views
about public health in a race frame. In the words of Natalia Molina "Our views about race
have always colored our views about who is safe or who is contaminated, or who is most likely
to be a disease carrier or a disease spreader." In the COVID-19 sphere, many far-right parties’
leaders have stated that the spread wouldn’t have occurred if the government had restricted
free circulation of goods and people by adopting an anti-immigrant policy.

In the United States, American rightists have been pointedly calling the disease “the Wuhan
virus”, with Donald Trump referring to it as the “Chinese virus” and ceasing all contact. And
the Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban has made a similar statement by
blaming foreigners for the spread of the virus in the country. The media has weaponized the
virus by linking it to migration. As we can see, populist have found the way to fit the spread of
the virus in their political agenda. In order to justify discrimination against immigrants,
foreigners and refugees, media outlets along with the government are creating an
environment where society thinks they have a right to treat these groups of people unfairly
and marginalize them.

However, as obvious as it may seemed, blaming immigrants is taking the easy way out. There
is no scientific evidence that low levels of immigration will stop all possible infections which is
the situation for United Stated that had ceased all connection with China. Nonetheless, their
number of new cases continues to rise up. This is due to the fact that Americans paid no
attention to the health measures World Health Organization recommended to eliminate any
risk from acquiring Covid-19. Even if the information and actions to prevent it were told from
the start, they were more concerned about where to go rather than following standard health
practices

At last, misinformation and disinformation provide a path to a stigma that turns society
against each other instead of working together to stop the spread of the virus. Government
should guard against panic not fueled it. As South Korea Foreign Minister, Kang Kyung-Wha,
once said “Governments have to take responsibility to stop xenophobic behaviors by
generating the spirit of collaboration that we absolutely need to overcome this challenge
together globally