Asian American health workers fight virus and racist attacks By Jennifer Peltz / AP, NEW YORK Medical student Natty Jumreornvong has a vaccine and protective gear to shield her from the coronavirus. However, she could not avoid exposure to the anti-Asian bigotry that pulsed to the surface after the pathogen was first identified in China. Psychiatry patients have called her by a racist slur for the disease, she said. A bystander spat at the Thai-born student to “go back to China” as she left a New York City hospital where she is training. As she walked there in scrubs on Feb. 15, a man came up to her, snarled “Chinese virus,” took her cellphone and dragged her on a sidewalk, said Jumreornvong, who reported the attack to police.