[Coronavirus and New York: Lunar New Year events were canceled over fears.]

City health officials have said it was only a matter of time before the virus appeared in New York State, though no cases had been confirmed so far. They said residents should take the same precautions they would for the flu, such as washing their hands, but should also continue about their lives.

Still, some people are worried that their neighborhoods are being stigmatized.

“It’s mixed emotions right now,” said Wayne Ho, the president and chief executive of the Chinese-American Planning Council. “We’re supposed to be celebrating Lunar New Year.”

He added: “The community feels that there could be racial profiling going on.”

Mr. Ho said dozens of people had reached out to his organization to report discrimination. In one case, he said, a Chinese woman who sneezed at a coffee shop overheard someone whisper that she might have the coronavirus. In another case, a man on the subway watched people walk away from him after he coughed.

Scott Liu, who lives in Queens, told my colleagues Joseph Goldstein and Jeffrey E. Singer that he was refusing to leave his house. Mr. Liu said he had been on the last direct flight from Wuhan — the Chinese city where the outbreak began — to Kennedy International Airport, before all flights between the two cities were canceled last week.

Mr. Liu said that he did not believe he was sick, but that he felt responsible to act with caution, even if that meant not visiting his friends and family for Lunar New Year.

“For us, this is very serious,” Mr. Liu, 56, said.

Others, like Lin Qiurong, who emigrated from Fujian Province in China in 2002, said that she ignored messages from her relatives and friends to avoid crowds. This week, Ms. Lin, 40, and her three children put on surgical face masks and headed to a parade in Sunset Park, Brooklyn’s largest Chinatown.

“Look around,” Ms. Lin said at the parade. “It’s much emptier compared to last year.”

The aftermath of the museum archives fire

About 200 firefighters and emergency personnel responded to a blaze at 70 Mulberry Street, the building in Manhattan’s Chinatown where the archives of the Museum of Chinese in America are situated. Nine firefighters were injured in the fire, which started about 8:40 p.m., as well as a 59-year-old man whom they rescued.