Hate speech during the pandemic

Hate Speech during the COVID-19 pandemic was primarily experienced by healthcare professionals, patients who had been diagnosed with SARS Cov-2 infection and police officers. Moreover, reports indicate that xenophobic, racist and anti-Semitic attitudes and verbal attacks had suddenly intensified. They seem to have been connected with blaming certain social and ethnic groups for spreading the virus. The language used in media space, for example conversations and interviews, was often full of vulgarity, and aggression, which sometimes led to destruction of private property as well as physical violence. There was clearly a general lack of calm, reflection, kindness and appeal to reliable sources, and no attempt to correct certain stereotypes, myths and errors as well as showing at least some empathy for the suffering, which could have been an antidote for hate speech, not only during pandemic but also in post-pandemic times.