There was a spike in anti-Asian sentiment on Twitter in the United States after President Donald Trump announced his COVID-19 diagnosis, a New York City-based civil rights group reported on Friday.
A study showed an 85 percent increase in anti-Asian sentiment and hostile language in the 12 hours following Trump's first tweet about his positive test for COVID-19, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said in a report quoted by the Washington Post.
"The percentage of anti-Asian sentiment in this subset of conversations remained elevated" from Oct. 2 to 5, the study added.
The ADL study was released Friday and made public by Congresswoman Judy Chu, head of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. The findings are based on an analysis of more than 2.7 million tweets between 2000 GMT on Oct. 2 through 2100 GMT on Oct. 5, according to the ADL.
The unreasonable blame that Trump's followers are putting on Asians could lead to greater acts of violence, Chu said.
