It can be both. Neither situation excludes the other.
Yes, people that refused to eat out in Chinatown were racist, because those people in Chinatown weren't the ones travelling. And the people that were refusing to eat out were still eating at other places which had travelers from all over; they weren't self-quarantining or trying to limit the spread of the virus.
There's nuance to discussion where you can discuss a country without being racist, but at the same time I've seen people make obviously racist remarks while trying to pretend it's meant as a criticism of the country and not the people.
If you're avoiding little Italy or little Canada because you think they're diseased then yes, that would make you racist.
If you avoid those places because you don't feel like having Italian or Canadian food right now then no, that's not racist.
In this case, the reason why people were avoiding Chinatown was because they were avoiding a group of people they were afraid of due to the coronavirus. That's racism. They weren't trying to avoid the virus because they were still going out, eating at other restaurants and still being in the general public.
You feel avoiding little Canada would make you racist?
Against what race would that be?
I feel like the word racism has lost it's intended meaning if people believe not going to little Canada (for fears of getting a virus) is somehow judging a group of people based on their skin colour. A Canadian can be white/black/asian/native or anything else... A Canadian isn't a race it is a term that includes many races. Unless you are now racist against all races by not going to little Canada I can't imagine how that term applies.
Maybe you want to say.. prejudice (to pre-judge) rather than racist (to pre-judge based on race).
People were pre-judging when making decisions to go to chinatown. They thought with all of the international travel between China and little China perhaps they would be more likely to get the virus.
Calling people who made a decision based on belief of likeliness of getting the virus racist is wrong. They didn't make a decision on race they made it on some other factor that didn't include slin color.
Calling them racist makes you racist. You have pre-judged a group of people based on race (little China) when everyone else were basing it on geography. I hope you can accept responsibility and change your views for the future. The world doesn't need people judging others based on race we need to get away from that.
In other words, early on, it wasn't unreasonable to believe that P(travel to china|inside chinatown) > P(travel to china|outside chinatown), especially in a city with strong trade ties and relative geographic proximity to the Pacific ocean.
Would you ask GrubHub to not send anyone Chinese or Italian to your door? Did you inquire about the nationality of any service worker you interacted with, and ask for someone who's not Italian or Chinese? What if they're only part Italian or part Chinese, do they only get half infected?
Starts to sound kind of racist when you assume person of certain race = infection.
Yes, people that refused to eat out in Chinatown were racist, because those people in Chinatown weren't the ones travelling. And the people that were refusing to eat out were still eating at other places which had travelers from all over; they weren't self-quarantining or trying to limit the spread of the virus.
There's nuance to discussion where you can discuss a country without being racist, but at the same time I've seen people make obviously racist remarks while trying to pretend it's meant as a criticism of the country and not the people.