Health workers as hate crimes targets during COVID-19 outbreak in the Americas.

Many health workers in the Americas, especially women, have been victims of discrimination and different types of grievances during the COVID-19 pandemic. These brief reflections aim to make the problem visible, offer theoretical explanations and some recommendations. The pandemic constitutes a massive crisis that triggers fears and reassuring of diffuse anxieties, which often includes someone to blame. Healthcare workers have become circumstantial scapegoating targets. The inflicted attacks can be understood as reactive hate crimes since they are originated from an allegedly healthy person to an allegedly contaminated person. People seems to incur in a sanitary profiling process based on the health worker's uniform. However, these expressions of hatred are fueled by pre-pandemic circumstances such as the precariousness of health systems and deficient medical equipment, misogyny, or the pervasiveness of authoritarian tendencies. Understanding this situation as a human rights issue, it is suggested to consider measures in order to discourage these attacks, such as: guaranteeing the appropriate conditions of hospitals and the personal protective equipment of workers; development of recognition campaigns of the healthcare staff and the work they carry out (in particular female nurses); and implementing transitory regulations that sanction any hate crime type attack to health workers or the scientific community. Furthermore, educational advocacy efforts should reiterate basic hygiene measures for the people, but also focus on refuting false and pseudoscientific beliefs that contribute to the fear-induced construction of the health worker as a threat of contagion.

Health workers as hate crimes targets during COVID-19 outbreak in the Americas / Trabajadores de la salud como objetivos de crímenes de odio durante el brote de COVID-19 en las Américas

Many health workers in the Americas, especially women, have been victims of discri-mination and different types of grievances during the COVID-19 pandemic. These brief reflections aim to make the problem visible, offer theoretical explanations and some recommendations. The pandemic constitutes a massive crisis that triggers fears and reassuring of diffuse anxieties, which often includes someone to blame. Healthcare workers have become circumstantial scapegoating targets. The inflicted attacks can be understood as reactive hate crimes since they are originated from an allegedly heal-thy person to an allegedly contaminated person. People seems to incur in a sanitary profiling process based on the health worker´s uniform. However, these expressions of hatred are fueled by pre-pandemic circumstances such as the precariousness of health systems and deficient medical equipment, misogyny, or the pervasiveness of authoritarian tendencies. Understanding this situation as a human rights issue, it is suggested to consider measures in order to discourage these attacks, such as: guaran-teeing the appropriate conditions of hospitals and the personal protective equipment of workers; development of recognition campaigns of the healthcare staff and the work they carry out (in particular female nurses); and implementing transitory regulations that sanction any hate crime type attack to health workers or the scientific community. Furthermore, educational advocacy efforts should reiterate basic hygiene measures for the people, but also focus on refuting false and pseudoscientific beliefs that contribute to the fear-induced construction of the health worker as a threat of contagion.

Health workers as hate crimes targets during coviD-19 outbreak in the Americas

ABSTRACT Many health workers in the Americas, especially women, have been victims of discrimination and different types of grievances during the COVID-19 pandemic. These brief reflections aim to make the problem visible, offer theoretical explanations and some recommendations. The pandemic constitutes a massive crisis that triggers fears and reassuring of diffuse anxieties, which often includes someone to blame. Healthcare workers have become circumstantial scapegoating targets. The inflicted attacks can be understood as reactive hate crimes since they are originated from an allegedly healthy person to an allegedly contaminated person. People seems to incur in a sanitary profiling process based on the health worker's uniform. However, these expressions of hatred are fueled by pre-pandemic circumstances such as the precariousness of health systems and deficient medical equipment, misogyny, or the pervasiveness of authoritarian tendencies. Understanding this situation as a human rights issue, it is suggested to consider measures in order to discourage these attacks, such as: guaranteeing the appropriate conditions of hospitals and the personal protective equipment of workers;development of recognition campaigns of the healthcare staff and the work they carry out (in particular female nurses);and implementing transitory regulations that sanction any hate crime type attack to health workers or the scientific community. Furthermore, educational advocacy efforts should reiterate basic hygiene measures for the people, but also focus on refuting false and pseudoscientific beliefs that contribute to the fear-induced construction of the health worker as a threat of contagion.(AU) RESUMEN Muchos trabajadores sanitarios de las Américas, especialmente mujeres, han sido víctimas de discriminación y diferentes tipos de agravios durante la pandemia de COVID-19. Estas breves reflexiones tienen por objetivo visibilizar el problema, ofrecer algunas explicaciones teóricas y algunas recomendaciones. La pandemia constituye una situación de crisis generalizada que detona miedos y necesidad de calmar ansiedades difusas, lo que incluye buscar culpables. Los trabajadores de la salud se han convertido en chivos expiatorios circunstanciales. Los ataques sufridos pueden ser comprendidos como crímenes de odio reactivos en cuanto que se dirigen de una persona supuestamente sana a otra supuestamente contaminada. Las personas parecen incurrir en un proceso de perfilamiento sanitario basado en el uniforme del personal de salud. No obstante, estas expresiones de odio se alimentan de circunstancias previas a la pandemia como la precariedad de los sistemas de salud y del equipamiento de los trabajadores, la misoginia o la existencia de tendencias autoritarias. Comprendiendo la situación como un asunto de derechos humanos, para contrarrestar estos ataques se sugiere considerar medidas como: garantizar condiciones hospitalarias apropiadas y de equipamiento protector de los trabajadores;campañas de reconocimiento de la labor que desempeñan (en particular las enfermeras);y el establecimiento de normativas transitorias que sancionen cualquier ataque de odio contra trabajadores sanitarios o la comunidad científica. Adicionalmente, se sugiere implementar campañas educativas que, además de reiterar las medias higiénicas básicas, se enfoquen en desmentir creencias falsas o pseudocientíficas que contribuyen a la construcción, inducida por el miedo, del trabajador de la salud como una amenaza de contagio.(AU)