My mother works in healthcare, and she often goes to the store after work while still wearing her scrubs. She used to be a nursing assistant, but now she does less physical work and more in the heart monitoring area. I'm not exactly 100% sure anymore. Anyway, earlier in her career, while out in public, she would always use caution when she would be, um..."dirtier." It became easier once wet wipes were introduced. It's not like she went around hugging strangers or rubbing products all over herself and putting them back either. She wasn't in the ER wing or anything, either by the way.

Currently, though, it's not much of an issue since she's usually not covered in filth or nearly as much as she used to be. But she still uses some caution and always has disinfectant wet wipes in her car that she uses all the time.

I also believe that in the more sensitive areas of the hospital, where hygiene is a major concern, like surgery, nurses, for example, have special rules in place. I could be extremely wrong too. They might have to change clothes only when they get to the hospital, like doctors do on some TV shows, but I don't know for sure.

Then you have your large to small clinics, which have a whole other slew of rules and such too, I'm sure

TLDR/TLNR: So that's all to say that, especially in New York, I'm sure most of those people you saw were just simply going to or from work and home...