Mesa College students only feel that if other major universities in San Diego are taking precautions and moving classes online amid the recent coronavirus outbreak, the community colleges of San Diego, specifically the San Diego Community College District, should take the same action. California currently has 157 confirmed cases, with thousands of residents being tested due to possible exposure - many of our own San Diego residents included. The coronavirus has a transmission rate that is 4x higher than the flu; forcing students to congregate in crowded spaces where they could potentially infect one another seems counterintuitive to preventing the spread of the virus. San Diego may not be severely impacted now, but we should be aiming to prevent the spread of the disease rather than wait to try and contain it before thousands of people contract it. There have been many arguments comparing the symptoms and death rate of the flu to the coronavirus. While symptoms may be similar, we cannot compare death rates as the virus has not even been active long enough for us to have enough data to calculate its annual mortality. It is also important to consider that, while the flu has a vaccine, the coronavirus does not - not only that, but the flu vaccine has a success date of only 67%. We are barely safe from the flu. This argument has only served to bolster the potential catastrophe this virus could cause. A simulation of the coronavirus outbreak from three months ago saw that 65 million people died in 18 months. At this rate, we should be uniting as a force to prevent the spread of this disease, regardless of how it may not affect healthier individuals; regardless of it is an issue here on our home-front yet. If you haven’t, stop reading the garbage on social media that is telling you this is not a big deal; the World Health Organization would not have declared this a pandemic if it wasn’t. Coachella wouldn’t be postponed. And UCSD, SDSU, and other cautious universities around the countries certainly wouldn’t be moving their classes online. Please consider this as a request from the Mesa Student body who would rather take preventative measures now than watch millions of people die.