CNN anchor Chris Cuomo urged viewers to “go straight ethnic” on Thursday night when it comes to cleaning surfaces in order to combat coronavirus.
During a conversation with CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Cuomo questioned his colleague about the contagiousness of the coronavirus and how long it can stay on a surface.
“How long can the thing live, like, on my desk?” Cuomo asked.
“Well, I’m going to give you the answer, but I don’t want people to freak out by this,” Gupta warned, “because it can live on surfaces for days, actually. … Several studies that have looked at this, certain surfaces in the right condition, it can live for days.”
Gupta advised viewers to “disinfect all the time” since it “doesn’t matter” if something was cleaned yesterday if someone coughs or sneezes after.
“Go straight ethnic,” Cuomo said. “Be cleaning everything all the time with the harshest cleaners that you can find.”
The remarks sparked quite the reaction on social media, some even called for his firing.
“Does … does he mean ‘ethnic cleansing?'” Washington Examiner’s Siraj Hashmi asked.
“While talking about the importance of sanitizing and cleansing, @ChrisCuomo said people need to ‘go straight ethnic’. This is an insensitive comment @CNN needs to take [responsibility] and #FireChrisCuomo,” liberal activist Nikola said.
“He can’t be making an ‘ethnic cleansing’ joke… can he?” reporter Jerry Dunleavy reacted.
