Too often we are quick to judge and demonise those we do not understand. As a vegan and humanitarian, I welcome refugees of any species.

And yes, that includes the coronavirus.

It is surely no coincidence that the so-called “medical community” has decided to focus its ire on a Chinese virus rather than, say, German Measles, Japanese Encephalitis or Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. I consider the search for a vaccine to be profoundly racist.

Already, the virus has been renamed “Covid-19” in a flagrant attempt at dehumanisation. Do you know who else was given numbers instead of names? That’s right. Those two gay robots in Star Wars.

The problem we now face is that racists like that oxidized hobgoblin Donald Trump are now using the phrase “Chinese virus” as a racist dog-whistle. On the other hand, it should go without saying that denying the coronavirus its right to a national identity post-migration is also a racist dog-whistle. Therefore, those of us who oppose racism must be sure that we never refer to the virus as Chinese, or deny that it is, in fact, Chinese.

During this difficult time, we must all work together to ensure that this pandemic does not distract us from the far more serious problem of people being misgendered on Twitter. Indeed, given the fact that hardly any elderly people are non-binary, I cannot help but think that all this concern for the over-seventies is rather transphobic. Why should boomers suddenly be getting all the attention?

The best thing about the coronavirus is that it has revealed just how privileged white people are. Ethnic minorities like me (literally nothing about me is white except for my skin colour) have had to deal with systemic oppression all our lives. Suddenly whites are discovering what it feels like to live in fear and everything gets shut down. This is white fragility in action.

For now, I am making my contribution by taking to social media and urging all straight white males to self-isolate. Not because of the coronavirus; I just can’t stand them.