五 阅读理解 （共 3 小题；每小题 3 分，满分 10 分）
A
The sudden rise of the new coronavirus (冠状病毒) has shocked China. Although China has been doing everything possible to stop the virus, it has spread outside of its borders and into other regions. There are now confirmed cases of COVID-19 in countries including the UK, Japan, Germany, Vietnam, Russia and the United States.
There is a growing fear that the effects of the outbreak will worsen if it is not contained. This has led to countries closing borders with China and putting travel bans in place, hoping to protect their own citizens. However, fear and misinformation have also caused the spread of something else – racism .
Restaurants and businesses in many tourist areas across the world have posted signs banning Chinese people. Social media users recently shared a picture of a sign outside a hotel in Rome, Italy. The sign said that “all people coming from China” were “not allowed” in the hotel. Similar signs with anti-Chinese sentiment (情绪) were also reportedly seen in South Korea, the UK, Malaysia and Canada. These signs were loud and clear – “No Chinese”. Racist actions such as these do a lot more harm than good.
“My ethnicity (种族渊源) has made me feel like I was part of a threatening and diseased mass ,” Sam Phan, a master’s student at the University of Manchester, wrote to the Guardian.
Edith Bracho-Sanchez, an assistant professor at Columbia University Irving Medical Center, has experience working on health issues that involve international borders. “As human beings, we are afraid of the things we don’t know, but our response should be to educate ourselves, not to further spread … fears and misunderstandings,” she said. Bracho-Sanchez suggested that the media should “stick to the facts”.
Phan shared a similar view: “It’s important … to see us in all our diversity , as individual human beings, and to challenge stereotypes (刻板印象). The coronavirus is a human tragedy, so let’s not allow fear to breed (引发) hatred, intolerance and racism.”
Instead of spreading misinformation and fueling fearful thoughts, we should do everything we can to support those who are affected by events such as the COVID-19 outbreak. After all, the real enemy is the virus, not the people who are fighting it.
46 What do Paragraphs 2-3 mainly talk about?