JIM TREACHER: Watch: Chinese Government Encourages Italians to Fight Coronavirus Racism by Hugging Strangers.

Titled “Italian residents hug Chinese people to encourage them in coronavirus fight,” the brief video shows a handsome, casually dressed young Chinese man standing in a busy pedestrian area in Florence. He’s blindfolded and wearing a surgical mask, next to a handwritten sign reading the following in Italian and Chinese: “I am not a virus. I am a human being. Free me from prejudice.” Then, as stirring electronic music swells, passersby hug him and touch his face to remove his blindfold and mask.

So much for “social distancing.”

This was released on February 4, 2020. Six weeks later, Italy now has more active coronavirus cases than anywhere else in the world, and the entire country has completely shut down.

Again, this video was released by the Chinese government. Someone who’s far more paranoid and conspiratorially minded than I am might wonder why the ChiComs stifled information about a viral outbreak within their own borders, silencing doctors and others who tried to warn the outside world, while at the same time releasing treacly, upbeat propaganda videos encouraging Europeans to come into direct physical contact with random Chinese people or else they’re racists.

Related: The American media is in a Chinese finger-trap. Outlets shilling for the PRC fully deserve to be dubbed ‘enemies of the people.’