In Japan, the hashtag #ChineseDon’tComeToJapan has been trending on Twitter. In Singapore, tens of thousands of residents have signed a petition calling for the government to ban Chinese nationals from entering the country.

In Hong Kong, South Korea and Vietnam, businesses have posted signs saying that mainland Chinese customers are not welcome. In France, a front-page headline in a regional newspaper warned of a “Yellow Alert.” And in a suburb of Toronto, parents demanded that a school district keep children of a family that had recently returned from China out of classes for 17 days.

The rapid spread of the coronavirus that has sickened about 9,800 people — the overwhelming majority in China, with all of the 213 deaths there — has unleashed a wave of panic and, in some cases, outright anti-Chinese sentiment across the globe.

While officials scramble to contain the crisis — the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency and the State Department issued a “do not travel” to China advisory — fears over the dangerous outbreak have fueled xenophobia. And the wave of spreading panic has, at times, far outstripped practical concerns.