Two days after announcing its first suspected case of coronavirus, New York City is still awaiting the results of three tests being evaluated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is based in Atlanta. Update, 6 p.m.: Test results from the first patient under investigation for coronavirus have come back negative, while results from two patients are still pending.

City health officials have said that the testing process for the new virus could take between 36 to 48 hours. But as of late Tuesday, a spokesman for the city's Department of Health said the agency had still not received word from the CDC about the tests.

In an effort to protect their privacy, city health officials have revealed little about the three individuals identified as possibly having contracted the disease. The first patient is said to be under 40 and hospitalized at Bellevue Medical Center. On Sunday, two more patients, both over 60, were disclosed as being treated at two different hospitals in Queens. All three are said to be in stable condition.

To date, there are no confirmed cases in New York City and the rest of the state. As of Tuesday, Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state was still waiting on three pending tests for individuals outside the five boroughs.

All told 17 people in the state have been identified for testing. There are 11 confirmed cases in the United States.

The longer wait time for test results is likely due to the backload at the CDC, which has received at least 260 tests from across the country. On Monday, following pressure from local health authorities, the CDC said they would expedite the approval process for a diagnostic test for city health agencies to administer. An official estimated that the test could be available as early as the end of this week.

With the number of cases now surging above 20,000 and more than 360 deaths, there is increasing global anxiety about the disease even though the overwhelming majority (99 percent) of cases have been located in Hubei province located in central China, according to the World Health Organization. "This is still first and foremost an emergency for China," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, during a meeting of the organization on Tuesday.

Still, in the face of what some are predicting will become a pandemic, there are signs of increasing panic. More and more New Yorkers are donning masks—despite questions about their effectiveness, and Chinese restaurants say they are experiencing a dramatic slowdown. The NY Times reported that restaurant workers and owners in Manhattan's Chinatown as saying that business "had dropped 50 to 70 percent in the last 10 days," and that travel agents and tour operators were bracing for cancellations by Chinese tourists coming to the city.

Chen Tang, the owner of Hwa Yuan on East Broadway, spoke of a similar decline, telling Fox5NYC, "A week ago really people started to get afraid. It's really affected our business."

Wellington Chan, the executive director of the Chinatown Partnership, which works with local businesses, told Gothamist that the "telltale sign" of the effect of coronavirus in the city would be this weekend, when Chinatown holds its Lunar festivities and parade. Flushing's Lunar New Year parade last month reportedly drew thousands of people.

Health and city officials are also raising concerns about potential anti-Chinese sentiment, which has been witnessed in countries closer to the outbreak.

“What is gravely concerning is the increased xenophobia against the Asian American population, specifically the Chinese community across New York City," said Dr. Henry Chen, the president of SOMOS, a nonprofit network of health care providers that serve Chinese patients in the city, in a statement. "With more panic and increased hysteria, there is a greater temptation to blame the outsiders.”

City health officials continue to stress that the risk of infection is low. They advise those who have recently traveled to China and are experiencing flu-like symptoms, including fever, cough and shortness of breath, to see a doctor immediately.

Currently, a highly respected team of scientists based in New York City are among the researchers playing a critical role in studying and hopefully helping Chinese officials contain the spread of a coronavirus outbreak. We've received ongoing updates from this team (which is led by a scientist who advised on the movie Contagion), and you can read the latest updates from them here.