'Dropped your coronavirus'

A video shot in Burnaby is making the rounds on social media after a white male makes some uncouth comments about the coronavirus to an Asian woman.

The video, shot outside Metrotown mall, was posted to WeChat, a popular social media platform, by a woman who identifies as Chinese Canadian.

The woman confronts the man for his comments, to which he replies: “I said you dropped your coronavirus.”

Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam and the BC Centre for Disease Control have called out discriminatory comments directed towards Asian Canadians, as well as the spread of misinformation on social media, related to the outbreak.

The comments, said Tam, are “unacceptable and very hurtful.”

“These actions create a divide of us versus them,” she tweeted. “Canada is a country built on deep-rooted values of respect, diversity and inclusion.”