Hong Kong’s equality watchdog has been criticized for calling a stop to continued media use of “Wuhan pneumonia,” as views differ over the potential of the phrase in engendering discrimination.

The criticism came from a labour union representing Hong Kong public hospital staffers, after Ricky Chu, the chairperson of the Equal Opportunities Commission, said the use of the term had a tendency to stigmatize a certain Chinese region and create discrimination, division and hatred in society.

Chu wrote, without naming any media outlet, in an article on Tuesday that the media should stop using the label immediately as the World Health Organization had officially named the disease caused by the prevalent coronavirus as “COVID-19.”

He argued it was meaningless to carry on with the use of an “unofficial term” and that “the name of a disease should not be discriminatory.”

Wuhan is the capital city of Hubei province in China and the place where the world’s first COVID-19 patients were recorded.

The Hospital Authority Employees Alliance objected to Chu’s argument that naming a contagious disease after a geographical region would cause discrimination.

Alliance chairperson Winnie Yu brought up the examples of the Ebola virus disease, Japanese encephalitis and athlete’s foot, the last of which was literally translated as “Hong Kong foot” in Chinese.

She questioned how the equality watchdog would explain the so-called discrimination issue in those instances.

The name “Wuhan pneumonia” had been widely used in local communities and had even appeared in pro-China newspapers Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao before, Yu noted.

Roy Tam, a district councilor of Tsuen Wan and an environmentalist, emphasized that the intention of using the term “Wuhan pneumonia” was clearly to point out the pandemic had originated from that particular Chinese city.

The continued adoption of the label could prevent China from shirking its responsibility while at the same time obliging society to address the problems caused by the pandemic, Tam said.

In the same article, Chu also criticized a media outlet for naming a confirmed COVID-19 carrier as a “queen of poison” in its report, saying the move lacked inclusion and empathy and would further polarize society.

The female patient, 52, is the wife of the Immigration Service Officers Association chairperson, according to a previous report in Apple Daily. She is suspected of having indirectly spread the coronavirus to relatives, friends and colleagues.

Chu pointed to provisions on vilification under Hong Kong’s Disability Discrimination Ordinance, saying that a public activity which incited hatred, serious contempt or severe ridicule involving a person with disability might violate the law. He acknowledged, however, that no conclusion could be arrived regarding “vilification” concerns in the news report.

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