have the resources they need to fight the looming threat of famine in yemen, ravaged by five years of conflict and disease, and now struggling with the coronavirus spreading virtually unchecked. coronavirus infections in the united states have passed 3 million, significantly more than any other country. cases have risen by more than 60,000 in one day. there have been at least 133,000 american deaths from covid—19. but the trump administration is pushing hard to reopen schools. the president has threatened to withdraw funding from schools which do not. 5 million people in australia's second—largest city, melbourne have been ordered to stay home for six weeks, because of a major spike in coronavirus infection. queensland is closing its borders to residents of victoria or anyone who has recently been to the state.

now on bbc newsm coronavirus: your stories. philippa thomas hears from people around the world about their extraordinary experiences during the pandemic and how covid—19 has changed their lives, including coverage of verbal abuse that some people have been subjected to. and a warning — this programme contains strong language. welcome to coronavirus: your stories, a programme about how covid—19 is changing lives around the world. i'm philippa thomas. and this week, we're looking at the virus and prejudice. the way in which fears around the coronavirus have stoked up prejudices around race, sex and strangers. later, we will hear from a new york photographer making portraits of asian—americans who face public

abuse over covid—19. a different sort of artist tells me from seoul in south korea me how much harder it is to be openly homosexual after a cluster of 130 infections began in a gay nightclub. but we'll start on the greek island of lesbos, which houses tens of thousands of the migrants who've crossed the mediterranean to try to live in europe. for years, they've tried to find some safety, shelter and support in refugee camps. one of the volunteers working on lesbos with the ngo lesvos solidarity is effie latsoudi, who's won an award for her volunteer work from the united nations. she's been telling me about how coronavirus has impacted her corner of the european migrant crisis. 1 march already, when corona was spreading in europe, but in lesbos, we didn't

have yet the lockdown. it was a black page for the history of the island, when we had so many attacks against solidarity, people, refugees, that they were not allowed to enter the camps because of the fear, there was stigmatisation and segregation of refugees already. so you are already describing an atmosphere of fear and incidents of violence, and then coronavirus arrives on the island. what was that like? exactly, we already have this fear and levels of attacks of violence on all of us. they cannot exit the camp because of this fear already and, at the same time, we have the lockdown of the coronavirus which is actually putting the refugees more slide.

more isolated, more segregated inside the camps. the message for the greek people was stay home, keep safe, wash your hands. but for refugees, this was impossible. we had people that were living in conditions that they didn't have access to clean water and toilets. they were living, thousands in a camp without a home, and without global medical support. already, we have this huge discrimination towards these people and the fear that they have already about the future of what will happen to them

in greece was increasing during covid—19 because they didn't have any support. on top of everything, many of the helpers, volunteers and organisations, they left moria because of the attacks and because of the fear of the attacks. so people were left abandoned there. so, effie, you stayed, you and your colleagues. what have you been able to do to help especially children, the minors, who were in the camps? unfortunately, working in this context, we have been facing crisis all the time so it's not the first crisis. we decided to get more unaccompanied children out of moria to protect them if we can, to prepare a safe space for them. we worked a lot in psychosocial support and activities, so the kids are calm, and they started to kind of heal from the trauma of moria and the conditions that they'd been

through all these months. and effie, tell us, what happened? did covid—19 spread through the camps or is it under control? what's the situation? actually, we don't have testing in all these months, months, so we don't have the real numbers of cases. but actually, the only real measures in the camp was the lockdown, keeping people in the camp, keeping them from the society. definitely it's clear that in lesbos, covid—19 was not spread through the population of refugees, and they suffered more because they are still in lockdown in the camps and in quarantine areas,

but covid—19 came in lesvos through greek people that were travelling, and we had only one death. i'd also like to ask you, effie, about fear of violence or fear of the virus that you feel. what's it been like for you under all these extra stresses? the fear that i felt during the racist attacks on the island was much bigger than the covid—19 fear. a crisis can be an opportunity to find new solutions to support each other, to create together safe spaces for us. and a safe future for this planet. effie latsoudi on the island of lesbos in greece. next, we go to south korea where it's never been easy to be openly gay, but it's become that much tougher since a cluster of 130 viral infections was traced back to a gay nightclub in seoul.

one man who is able to talk openly about the impact of that incident is performing artist heezy yang. i was born and raised in seoul and i would say i am a queer artist and activist here in south korea. i make all kinds of art using many different media and also i perform as a drag queen and i protest with my art and with my drag. so when the coronavirus came to seoul, one of the clusters of infections, about 130 cases, i think, started at a gay nightclub. tell us what that did, that fact becoming public? basically, all the gay clubs and bars in the area were affected

and they are going through a very tough time as korean media and lots of conservative groups and parties and conservative people in general blamed the gays, or lgbtq people, sexual minority as a whole, for the spread of covid—19. tell us a little bit more about the neighbourhood. it sounds as if it's one of the places where people could be themselves. homo hill is the area where lots of gay bars and clubs are. and having this kind of area, bars and space like this is very important for sexual minorities, gays, lgbtq people in korea, because it is, compared to a lot of western countries, korea is a very conservative society where conservative christianity is the biggest religion,

so people cannot be, freely be themselves when they are with their family or friends or colleagues, so that is why they need to sometimes go out and meet people who are in the same position you know, share similar stories, so it is very vital for lgbtq people to have these spaces. when this outbreak became public, the south korean government wants to track and trace everyone who's infected, to try to stop the virus spreading. why was that a real problem in itaewon? so, these clubs and bars actually took their visitors‘ and customers‘ names and cellphone numbers and where they live. a lot of the people didn't write their information correct because the fear of being outed,

and if the results were positive, then the information will be revealed on the internet, without the name, butjust enough information for people to guess who these people are. i can see the struggle for you here because you are talking about risk, you're talking about a risk to public health if people don't give their but you are also talking about a risk of being outed. are you feeling a real struggle there, or do some people have a real struggle with this? for being out and proud activists and artists, but there are a lot of friends of mine, even artists or activists who work for lg btq organisations, many of them are not out,

and they still have to lie about their sexuality or sexual orientation to their family, their parents. heezy yang, before coronavirus, do you think things were getting easier? when you talk about pride gatherings and parades in seoul, for example, was that possible, were those gatherings getting bigger before the virus? in general, things seemed to be going well, and going towards the right direction because seoul pride had been going to the festival for about 10 years now, and the first time i went there, the size of it was approximately 2,000 or 3,000 people but last year, they had over 120,000 people so the size of it has become really big,

in general, and mainstream media, and k—pop even included, not, like, very out and loud more queer and lgbtq factors and culture little by little, so things seemed to be going to the right direction but then this one outbreak happened and people had to face, they had to face the fact that things weren't actually as good as they seemed or there have always been problems. heezy yang in south korea. you are watching coronavirus: your stories. i'm philippa thomas and we are looking this week at virus and prejudice. next, a young photographer in new york city sees a rise in abuse directed at asian—american basis.

so i was waiting in line to enter a grocery store a day after the shelter—in—place order was officially announced here in new york city, and there were clear signs for social distancing but the man behind me was hovering right behind me so close to the point where i could almost feel his breath, and he didn't have a mask on. i politely asked him for some space to which he responded, "what did you say to me, chink?" and proceeded to cut in front of me. at this point, i was already anticipating an increase in hate crimes against asian—americans to a chinese virus about four days prior to my incident but i wanted to believe my experience was kind of an isolated incident since i live in such a racially and culturally diverse city like new york city. so haruka, that happened to you, and then you start asking around and realise this isn't an isolated incident? right, so i started to realise that there was a pattern

of these incidents and i started to do some research, i found several facebook groups where asian—americans were self—reporting incidents of racial aggression via text and video, and i also came across some advocacy organisations like chinese for affirmative action that compiled a virtual map of aggravated incident reports from asian—americans who had experienced racial aggressions across the us, and this virtual map already included up to 1,000 cases by the time i was conducting the research, but that number currently surpasses 1,500. interestingly enough, the nypd hate crimes statistics summary at this point included only one report of a hate crime directed towards asians at this point, so as you can imagine, the numbers weren't really adding up and i was shocked to hear the statistics, to be honest. underreporting has always been an ongoing issue within our community but i also felt like if we didn't bring public attention to this issue, our experiences would be confined to these online spaces and never be

taken seriously unless we did the documenting ourselves. so let's look at some of the documenting. i know you've got a whole series of case studies. if we take a couple — justin, for example. tell me his story. yes, sojustin tsui is a registered nurse who was harassed by a man on his way home on the subway, and the man made a reference to "chinks spreading all these sicknesses," and told him to go back to his country. he continued to be aggressive towards him untiljustin feared he would fall onto the tracks. what was particularly heartbreaking aboutjustin‘s story was that this is one of many incidents that he had experienced, you know, while commuting daily to the hospital where he worked as a nurse. so essentially he's, you know, being exposed to all of this harassment while he is in scrubs on public transportation, right?

and ironically, justin also had experienced more harassment than perhaps the rest of us because he had made the conscientious choice to wake up every morning during this pandemic and to protect his community out on the front lines as an essential worker. and i think with other cases, there are examples of different kinds of prejudice or discrimination kind of layering themselves on top of one another. ida chen, for example. right, so ida chen's story actually resonated with me the most. she was catcalled by a man who said something to the effect of, "i would be into you if you didn't carry the virus." racial insults directed at asian women are often quite nuanced. sp we hear that men only want to date us because they have an asian fetish, to more verbally explicit forms, like what ida had experienced. and from my own personal experience, you know, it can be especially difficult to respond in these types of circumstances, because asian—american women — we tend to experience these harder forms of microaggression on a regular basis, to the point where some of us

may have internalised these narratives, and it may become increasingly more difficult for some of us to distinguish what is acceptable, low—key racism versus what isn't. one thing that i also noticed — when asian—americans speak about their experiences, you know, a common follow—up question has usually been, well, what did you do? you know, did you say anything back? did you do anything to resolve the situation? and that's troubled me, because these questions are often used as a preface to highlight stereotypes like asian—america ns being, you know, passive and submissive, and not fighting back. and essentially, it's the logic that maybe this wouldn't happen to us if we had stood up for ourselves. to which i have to say, one, many asian—americans if you actually read through the stories do dispel these stereotypes by confronting their aggressors, and two, the onus should never be on the victim to react appropriately, whatever that means, to these microaggressions that we've experienced on a near daily basis. but are there problems speaking up? i mean, do yourfriends, for example, or your family,

say don't put yourself in trouble‘s way? yeah, that's been a common dilemma that i think asian—americans run into quite often. like i said, you know, when you're out in the city, whenever you do initiate these types of conversations and confrontations, then we don't know how it's going to end up. so yes, there's also a kind of social and familial incentive to just kind of keep your head down and not talk back to these aggressors. i have spent most of my time here in the us. you know, i've become so accustomed to minimising my own experiences, and to compare my struggles against the struggles of other communities, right, and concluding that my problems were too trivial or too insignificant to share with others. but i realised that hearing your own experiences validated through other people's testimonies can be incredibly healing and incredibly powerful.

so that's a response that i hope, you know, asian—americans, other asian—america ns would feel looking at the photos. you know, it's a kind of — to understand that maybe their experiences are validated. and if they for any reason, like me, had decided not to share their stories, not to come forward with their stories, due to a variety of reasons, whether it's fear of criticism from family members, or maybe, you know, generations of learned behaviour to prioritise other things, like financial and social status over mental health and emotional well—being, i still hope that they feel that their experiences are being validated as well. can you tell me more about the way in which people have delivered insults or abuse since coronavirus fears have come to the fore? it seems that you're telling me it's more open.

yes, so the insults, yes, they've become more open. and every one of the participants that we spoke to, you know, they were out in public while they had experienced this. so another reason why we really wanted to photograph the places where these incidents had occurred was because we wanted to convey the kind of ubiquity of these incidents. so these slurs are being thrown at us in public spaces like the street, the subway platform, public restrooms, for example. and we also wanted to really kind of turn these sites of victimisation, if you will, into sites of resistance. but yes, a lot of these slurs that are being thrown at us, a lot of the racial aggressions have become amplified in the context of the covid pandemic, and a lot of it does take place in, you know, public spaces. a lot of the reason being because we are confined to interacting with each other only in public spaces at this time.

but i think it goes to show that, you know, it's a day—to—day experience for many of us. there's also the way, haruka, and you've referred to this, the way you're being targeted as an asian face, asian—american. you're japanese. some of your subjects are chinese—american or korean. but everybody gets the same general slur, insult. exactly, yeah, and that's something that unfortunately a lot of us have gotten used to. i mean, i can't speakfor everybody, but as for my experience, you know, i grew up my entire life in the us public education system, and i have gotten so used to being called racial slurs, calling me chinese, essentially. but yeah, that hasn't taken on as much of a significance, because — you know, especially in the context of this pandemic, right?

it doesn't matter if you're chinese—american. you also shouldn't be experiencing this type of racial aggression. what about the reactions? you've been publishing these stories. you had an article in time magazine. your images are out there. tell me something about the reactions. so the actions have been overwhelmingly positive. you know, i receive daily messages from other asian—americans who have said that these stories have validated many of their own experiences. and thankfully, i think it's sparked larger conversations about the model minority myth, and how asians or the image of asian—americans have been kind of contorted and re—engineered throughout history. you know, maybe in the 19th century we were depicted as these disease—ridden foreigners, to these conniving enemies during world war ii, to now we are these apolitical, submissive, model minority types, after the term was coined in 1968. 0ur image is often used to serve political agendas and to legitimise immigration policies here in the us. and i think asian—americans are kind

of coming to a point where we're starting to revisit this myth once again, and we're currently at a precipice of possibly changing this narrative head—on. i also want to ask how your experiences sit with the huge reckoning in the united states now over race and equality, so much being said about black lives matter, so much awareness of identity politics. asian—americans, we have to share our experiences not in spite of but because of the black lives matter movement. black americans, black social reformers like frederick douglass, for example, have long paved the way for advocating for chinese immigrants. the civil rights movement had allowed all people of colour to gain access to the right to vote. and essentially, you know, black americans have long paved the road for our rights and citizenship in this country.

so the job and responsibility of asian—america ns, especially during this particular time in history, is to really acknowledge the tireless work of the people of colour that came before us, who have laid the foundation of our rights and citizenship here in this country, and to continue this legacy of resistance. photographer haruka sakaguchi on her personal experiences of racist abuse as a japanese—american — one of three personal stories this week about the virus and prejudice. i'm philippa thomas. thank you forjoining us for coronavirus: your stories. hello again. there were two very different types of weather across the uk during wednesday. it's a similar setup as we go into thursday. in the south, we've got lots of low cloud. this was borth on cardigan bay during wednesday afternoon. to the north of that, we've got a showery regime, much more sunshine around. and the divider is this

area of low pressure. so keeping all parts unsettled, but it's been bringing in heavy and persistent rain during the course of wednesday night. and that heaviest rain — yes, it will be clearing out of the way, but it leaves a legacy of those weather fronts — misty, low cloud. it's pretty humid, as well, with that by the front across the southern half of the country, a tad chilly further north. but lots of misty, low cloud, hill and coastal fog to clear first thing. 0r certainly the rain clears, but that misty, low cloud is likely to hang around for much of the day. so dull and overcast, damp and dreary, and very little changes. of course, it won't be raining all day. there'll be some drier slots, as we had during the day on wednesday, and it's still quite warm — 19—20 degrees, generally speaking. we might see some of the brighter skies filter into the north of england later. just the odd shower for northern ireland, with some sunny spells. sunny spells across scotland. but given the light winds, when the showers develop, they could become heavy

and thundery and slow—moving. so quite a lot of rain falling in a shortish space of time from those thunderstorms. but equally, either side of them, plenty of sunshine. and those will translate into clearer skies as we go through thursday night, as those thunderstorms rumble out. and that clearer weather is gradually filtering southwards. so not quite as humid through the night ahead, more comfortable for sleeping. more sunshine, therefore, on offer as we go into friday. but a brisker wind, and that wind comes down from the north—west, and it will make it feel cooler, and notably so in the south, although there'll be more sunshine to compensate. but equally, as you can see, lots of showers. they'll be heavy, as well, running southwards on that north—westerly breeze. they do tend to dampen down in activity towards the west later. why? because we've got the azores high moving in, and that's with us for the weekend, just with the risk or the chance of more rain coming into the north—west of the uk come sunday. so for many, we're lifting our temperatures a little, as well, with more sunshine and lighter winds across the south. in the north, still predominantly dry, butjust

potentially some rain in the north—west later.

this is bbc news. welcome if you're watching here in the uk, on pbs in america or around the globe. my name is mike embley. our top stories: yemen's latest battle. after years of civil war and hunger, how does a country fight a pandemic, with little medical care and almost no testing. the number of coronavirus infections in the us passes 3 million with at least 133,000 deaths but the white house is pushing hard to reopen schools. you in australia, melbourne begins a you second lockdown in response to a new spike in covid infections and queensland says it's going to close