Coronavirus USA Update: Woman Attacked At NYC Subway For Wearing Face Mask

An Asian-looking woman wearing a facemask (apparently Chinese) was beaten for no apparent reason by a young African-American man who yelled "Diseased b---h!" as he pummeled her with his fists.

The violent incident in a New York City subway Monday was caught on cam by someone and posted to Twitter by the New York Police Department Hate Crimes Task Force. The 15 second-long video shows the Asian woman wearing a yellow facemask running towards the stairs when she comes across a young black man, who suddenly starts hitting her.

The man pushes the woman to a wall and keeps punching and kicking her as bystanders try to pull him off the woman.

"Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. yo, yo calm down!" shouts someone.

The horrific attack seems to have taken place at the Grand Street station in Chinatown. A Twitter user claims to have seen the incident but this person's account doesn't seem to jibe with the video. This person said the woman "was telling people to move to the right and letting them know she was there."

The alleged witness said that when he exited the turnstiles, he saw a man was talking to the woman. At this point, he took off his headphones and clearly heard the man shouting "diseased b---h!" He also said he heard the woman asking him to go away.

An NYPD spokesman told NBC News it's not clear exactly when or where the attack occurred. The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is asking the public's help to identify the African-American male in the video.

"The NYPD and the Hate Crimes Task Force encourage the victim to report this incident to the police for a full investigation," said the task force said in its retweet of a post with the video. The post carried the caption, "Chinese woman gets attacked for wearing a mask in nyc."

Marian Guerra, deputy chief of staff for City Councilwoman Margaret Chin said they learned of the attack Monday night and believe it took place at the Grand Street station in Chinatown. Chin's district includes the Chinatown neighborhood.

Guerra said some of their constituents are afraid of a growing perception Chinese are carriers of the coronavirus despite there being no confirmed cases of infection in New York City. Epicenter of this global health emergency is the province of Hubei and its capital, Wuhan.

The Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has killed more than 500 persons (all but two of them in China) and infected 24,648 others, as of Thursday morning, Hong Kong time.

"We've seen a lot of anxieties from folks in the community," said Guerra, referring to Chinatown residents.