Lost star Daniel Dae Kim has lashed out at the “senseless” anti-Asian racism that’s increased in the wake of coronavirus, after revealing he tested positive for the illness.
The American actor, whose other credits include Hawaii Five-0 and films Always Be My Maybe and Hellboy, told his Instagram followers: “Please, please stop the prejudice and senseless violence against Asian people. Randomly beating elderly, sometimes homeless Asian-Americans is cowardly, heartbreaking and it’s inexcusable.”
Reacting to Trump’s decision to refer to the illness as “the Chinese virus”, Kim, 51, said: “Yes, I’m Asian. And yes, I have coronavirus. But I did not get it from China, I got it in America. In New York City.”
He added: “Despite what certain political leaders want to call it, I don’t consider the place where it’s from as important as the people who are sick and dying.”
The actor was filming scenes for TV series New Amsterdam, in which he bizarrely plays a doctor working amid a flu pandemic, when he developed symptoms.
Kim, who was born in South Korea before moving to America, said his family have all tested negative for the illness and he is now feeling better after experiencing body aches, a fever and tightness in his chest while flying home to Hawaii.
He was tested at a drive-in facility in Honolulu.
Other famous figures to have contracted the illness include Tom Hanks, his wife Rita Wilson and Idris Elba, who has hinted he caught it from Justin Trudeau’s wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau.
Meanwhile, Kim’s former Lost co-star Evangeline Lilly has refused to self-isolate despite pubs, bars and restaurants in many cities around the world closing in an attempt to prevent the pandemic from spreading further.
