This out of Los Angeles - this isn't just happening in New York, OP
and it's mainly white people doing this:
Fear of coronavirus fuels racist sentiment targeting Asians
“Taking Calc 151 with only Asians in the classroom ... I hope I don’t catch coronavirus ... thinkin about dropping this class now,”
a student wrote on his Snapchat story. A doctor in Ontario said
her son was cornered at school by children who wanted to “test” him for the virus just because he is half-Chinese.
Aida Zhu, 21, who was about to board a flight back home to San Diego, saw an agent with the Transportation Security Administration staring at her as she shuffled through security at William P. Hobby Airport in Houston while wearing a mask.
“I hope you’re not ill,” he said to her in a disgusted tone.
UC Berkeley’s health services center listed xenophobia toward Asian people as a “normal reaction” in an informational post on Instagram focused on “managing fears and anxiety” about the pneumonia-like sickness.
(Picture a University saying that it's understandable to be racist as a reaction)