It's time to cancel Emerald City Comic Con before 100k people arrive into an active and rapidly evolving public health emergency.

Next week is projected to be a very bad week for #COVID19 and NOW is the time to make your voices heard by our government and Reedpop Entertainment (the event organizer).

This virus is believed to double in scale every ~6 days as estimated by the team at Fred Hutch. Their estimate placed the number of undetected COVID-19 cases near 500 at the start of the week (3/2) and could number as high as 1,000 as of the of the end of the week. These people are who may be actively spreading the infection but not yet realize they are sick.

Countless cases of local community transmission have documented by the local media, affecting nursing homes, fire departments, an Amazon + Facebook office, a car dealership, CenturyLink Field and now the University of Washington among mounting unconfirmed cases. We've also seen export of cases from our region all the way to North Carolina.

All the while resources have been limited for testing and even critical PPE like masks for our first responders are seeing limitations in the supply chain.

Given the extend of community transmission with in King County, the early stage of our response efforts, and the inherent limits of hospitals and first responses to safely cope with sudden increases in demand for quality medical care;

We the undersigned demand first that Reed Entertainment voluntarily cancel Emerald City Comic Con as soon as possible.

Anything less will risk the lives and well being of countless King County residents, the flying public and the hometowns of attendees when the leave. We must think of those who are unable to handle suffering from COVID-19 due to costs, lack of quality insurance, work requirements or existing health conditions.

Baring timely voluntary cancellation, we urge City, County, State, Federal or International health and government leaders to bring fully to bear the tools you may have for promptly bring this situation to a close. We urge the City of Seattle to revoke any permits which can affect the cancellation of this conference.

The health of the city and our cherished arts community are critically important. The time to act is now.

We are one of the first American cities to face down COVID-19 and how we come together in this time of great challenge will set the tone for the nation and the world and demonstrate the strength of our free and open form of governance.