- FOR THE SAFETY OF ALL. Virus spreads in units of families. 

Manhattan is a 23 mi² island holding 1.62 million people. The population density is overwhelmingly high even when we disregard the commuters pouring from other boroughs as well as surrounding areas.

There is no way to avoid crowd in New York. The MTA disinfecting action that's supposed to take place every 72 hours will not be helpful when there are millions traveling via this system every single day. As we all know, Covid-19 has an incubation period of 14-20 days. Sometimes virus carriers will not show symptoms while still being contagious. According to WHO's newest data, this disease has a death rate of 3.4%. The common flu in the U.S. from Oct.19 - Feb.20 that killed 18,000-46,000 people has a death rate of 0.05%-0.1%. Yes, this is NOT JUST A FLU.

Please sign the petition. As students of FIT, we should put our personal health and our close family's well-being in the first place. Actions should be taken before crisis not after. So far CDC has not been reliable in this critical situation. Self-isolation has been proven to be the best way of preventing the spreading of virus. It is up to us to protect ourselves.

There are also hate crimes against Asians in the city. Students don’t feel safe in ANY way commuting to school! 

*SPECIAL NOTE: 

For people who are worried about graduating or completing your school work in time for this semester, I just wanna say that - the pressure should not fall on students’ shoulders. These are administrative problems our school needs to figure out. What we as students, as children, as adults, as people, need to do is to protect ourselves first, and prevent breakout from happening. There simply will not be enough manpower or medical equipments to treat NYC if the worst were to come.