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Just weeks after Florence mayor Dario Nardella urged citizens to “hug a Chinese” as part of a campaign to fight racism amid the coronavirus outbreak, the Italian city saw its first confirmed case of the illness.
Italy has suffered the world’s deadliest outbreak of the respiratory pandemic with at least 5,476 people dead as of Sunday, most of them in Lombardy, the wealthy northern region anchored by the country’s financial capital Milan.
Conservative radio host Ken Webster Jr. referenced Nardella’s campaign on Thursday in a tweet, which featured photos of Italian citizens hugging Asian people.
Nardella, in a video shared to Twitter on Feb. 1, called on citizens to remain “united in battle” against the coronavirus pandemic and not to succumb to “hate.”
In the clip, Nardella himself is seen hugging an Asian man.
#coronavirus: seguiamo le indicazioni delle autorità sanitarie e usiamo cautela, ma nessun terrorismo psicologico e soprattutto basta con i soliti sciacalli che non vedevano l’ora di usare questa scusa per odiare e insultare. Uniti in questa battaglia comune! #AbbracciaUnCinese
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In early February, a member of a group that promotes Chinese-Italian relations took part in a social experiment aimed at fighting racism.
The man challenged Italian strangers on the street to hug him while a sign next to him read: “I’m not a virus. I’m a human. Free me from prejudice.”
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