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.<p>And minorities often feel it harder:<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/us/face-masks-ethnicity-coronavirus-cdc-trnd/index.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/us/face-masks-ethnicity-coron...</a><p>As for NYC, I <i>assume</i> even without explicit overriding, police are under orders not to enforce the "no masks" part.<p>Even beyond the legal bit, I assume there's a real security risk too, since <i>actual</i> robbers have cover for wearing a mask and people won't raise their guard or (of course) call the police about it.