This literally never happened. What “certain activist types” were doing was calling out racist language, rhetoric and slurs aimed at Chinese (and impacting other Asians) that was getting us harassed in public, spat and coughed on and quite quickly thereafter physically attacked.
https://twitter.com/richard_vixen/status/1486057059477037061
The same Asian Americans who were telling people to stop with the racist Kung Flu and bat eating jokes were ALSO telling you to fucking wear masks and take this disease really seriously because with SARS and bird flu, we had seen this movie already and it sucked
https://twitter.com/richard_vixen/status/1486057059477037061
The “defiance of coronavirus scare” language used here was about pushing back against redlining/targeting Chinese American communities because of what was happening in China. This was when there were 14 cases in the US, all linked to recent travel to Wuhan, none in Chinatown. 
This article does a good job of clarifying the situation. People were avoiding Chinatown like the literal plague—but going about business elsewhere. But Chinatown residents damn well knew Covid was serious even in Feb 2020.
See this woman wearing a mask.
theguardian.com/world/2020/feb…
See this woman wearing a mask.
theguardian.com/world/2020/feb…
No one was minimizing the virus’s danger. Plenty of people were trying to avoid making Covid a uniquely targeted economic and social burden on the Asian American community, particularly immigrant enclaves. These two impulses can coexist.
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