We should shut down the University of Toronto as a response to the deadly coronavirus.

When this petition is created, 15 new cases have just emerged in Canada, bringing the total cases from 37 to 52. This is a 40% increase, which means that if the virus continue to spread at this rate (let's hope it would not), after 7 days there will be 550 cases, 5780 cases after two weeks, and more than one million after one month. 

On March 5th, the first community spread case was reported. This means the patient had not travel to coronavirus hotspot countries, nor had known contact with anyone who was tested positive with the virus. If we don't act before the virus hit us, it will be too late. 

As opposed to misinformation circulated around the internet, the COVID-19 has a death rate of 3.4% worldwide according to WHO, comparing to flu's 0.1% in the US, according to CDC. 

Another often overseen aspect of the virus is its high burden of medical resources. Currently 15% of those who are tested with the virus are in critical condition, which consume huge amount of resources. If this virus is failed to be contained, as hospital run out of medical beds, a great portion of these people will die. For example, the death rate in Wuhan, where all citizens were forbade from leaving as an effort of containing the virus, is as high as 4.9%, whereas the death rate in the rest of China excluding Hubei is merely 0.16%. 

It will take at least a year for the vaccine to come out, according to Anthony Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the United States. 

We are still uncertain whether the coronavirus will go away as summer arrive, like SARS did. But even if it does, there are still months ahead of us. We should start acting quickly, before the first community spread case happen at UofT. Considering the common class size of hundreds of people in lower years and the crowds entering and exiting buildings in between classes, if one community spread happen, it will most certainly be horrible. 

Quote from Dr. John Campbell on his comment on the virus on March 6th: "We need to move from reactivity to Proactivity." Please save lives, by shutting the school down.