In the knife attack in Texas the causal link between news about something bad originating in Asia and the attack seems pretty direct. The attacker said in cour

In the knife attack in Texas the causal link between news about something bad originating in Asia and the attack seems pretty direct. The attacker said in court that he blamed China for the COVID pandemic, mistook the Burmese for Chinese, and perceived them as a thread because they were "from the country who started spreading that disease around". Note at the time of the attack the attacker probably did not actually know anyone who had COVID and probably hadn't even been personally affected by anti-COVID measures. The attack was a mere 4 days after the first confirmed COVID case in Texas from community spread, and only 3 days after the WHO had declared COVID a pandemic. The governor had declared a disaster the day before which gave him powers to order state-wide health measures, but no such measures had actually been undertaken.