Attacks on Health Care Workers Taking Place

A few people people  are seeing health care workers as spreading the coronavirus. A nurse went on television in Mexico. She said: Please stop assaulting us. “We can save your lives. Please help us take care of you. For that we need you to take care of us.” Many nurses do not wear their uniforms as they go to and from work. They fear attack.

Doctors, nurses and other health care workers are heroes in most places. People cheer them from windows and rooftops. That is not the case everywhere.

In the Philippines, attackers doused a nurse with bleach, blinding him. In India, a mob throwing stones chased a group of medical workers.  Reports of fearful neighbors chasing care workers  from their homes are widespread. In Pakistan, a landlord evicted a nurse and her children  from their apartment.

Mexico was slow to call for social distancing. It did not encourage people to stay home. Now there is a rapid rise in the number of cases with coronavirus.

A Mexican official spoke of the attacks against medical crews. He said it makes no sense and the country cannot accept it. The people are assaulting those who can help.

The Philippine president said of the people who threaten health care workers. He said, “I want to order the police to arrest anyone who harasses them. Once in prison, do not feed them. Let them starve.”

This kind of reaction is not new. A year ago, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed a polio vaccinator in Pakistan. That attack brought the death toll to at least three health care workers. There were other events.  Men shot and killed two police officers assigned to protect vaccination teams.

Islamic extremists say the vaccinations are a foreign plot to sterilize Muslim children.

In most of the world, people cheer health care workers. People are stepping onto balconies and clapping hands. People are doing so in China, Italy, Spain, France, Great Britain, Turkey, Argentina and the United States.

The coronavirus is testing people and governments. No one knows how we will look back on this period.

Source: The New York Times April 27, 2020