During its spread across the world, the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has brought other harmful maladies alongside a snowballing death toll.

Looming economic collapse, a heightened mental health crisis and stalling on other urgent issues like the climate emergency are all among the fallout.

Another is an apparent increase in racism towards people of East Asian descent after the initial outbreak of the virus in Wuhan, China.

Yi-Na is a British New Malden resident of Chinese descent and one of the people to have experienced racist abuse since the advent of coronavirus.

In a heartfelt post on a neighbourhood social media group, Yi-Na, who has lived in the area all her life, described her "tiredness" at suffering racism after men shouted abuse at her and referenced her ethnicity in relation to coronavirus recently.

The post garnered hundreds of likes and supportive comments at a time when anti-racist movements like Black Lives Matter have renewed their challenge to systemic racism against non-white people.

Yi-Na since spoke to the Comet about racism towards people of East-Asian descent during the pandemic in further detail.

"I expressed being tired because it was not the first time it had happened to me, whether that be within the local community or elsewhere within the UK," she said.

"I am left to choose between remaining silent, or defending myself and still not be taken seriously, or else be expected to ‘brush it off’.

"There is tiredness in how subtle casual racism is and knowing my ethnicity is like a hot topic joke to some.

"It's like an ego booster to people that do it and you lose hope for a change in their mindset," she added.

Yi-Na's words arrived at a time when a new wave of consciousness about the prevalence of racism in the Global North is rising, led by the BLM movement.

She reflected on why prejudice is still so prevalent — on how even casual racism had been allowed to thrive in a supposedly tolerant country like the UK.

"How can someone know the difference between what is acceptable and not acceptable if our education systems and government do not focus and provide the opportunities for awareness, guidance and knowledge on these situations?

"This leads to generations of people not knowing what is ‘tolerable’ and ‘not tolerable'.

"It is so easy to target people with offensive words highlighting nothing but the racial differences between ethnicities, and the expectations of victims is to then ‘brush it off ‘or ‘be less sensitive’," she pointed out.

Ending systemic racism is expected to be a struggle for years to come and one that may never fully end.

Yet solutions for promoting greater harmony in society are out there.

Some of them, like reforming education, are institutional and require action from those in power.

As Yi-Na and many others argue, grassroots action is also vital.

"The Asian community has a part to play...Partly because we have not been taught or not discussing what is ‘tolerable’ and not. We are often taught to ‘stay out of trouble’ and ‘avoid confrontation’," she explained.

Moreover, she pointed out, cooperation between communities is key:

"The coming of together within communities will provide open dialogues focusing on areas that were once uncomfortable to talk about, creating awareness and a strong sense of support and possible solutions...it requires a team effort.

"Ethnic minorities should also come together, support each other and speak out for those who cannot. The bigger the unification, the louder the voices.

"There could be more local activities, resources and youth groups organised for kids and adults.

"More involvement of different cultural events; Kingston Carnival is a wonderful example.

"Local businesses could also collaborate. We can check in on our neighbours and lend a helping hand."