Yes, ad hoc/DIY masks feel intuitively wrong because normally it's illegal, and looks very threatening, to cover so much of your face like that. And minorities

Yes, ad hoc/DIY masks feel intuitively wrong because normally it's illegal, and looks very threatening, to cover so much of your face like that. And minorities often feel it harder: https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/us/face-masks-ethnicity-coronavirus-cdc-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/us/face-masks-ethnicity-coron... As for NYC, I assume even without explicit overriding, police are under orders not to enforce the "no masks" part. Even beyond the legal bit, I assume there's a real security risk too, since actual robbers have cover for wearing a mask and people won't raise their guard or (of course) call the police about it.