York Region District School Board is urging parents not to speculate about the risk of students and staff spreading the coronavirus based on their race. This comes after a online petition called on the school board, which has a large Chinese population, to ask students whose families recently returned from China to stay home for 17 days to be quarantine. It also demands that schools keep track of students’ travel and inform other parents.

Board chair Juanita Nathan and education director Louise Sirisko say that such requests run the risk of “demonstrating bias and
racism,” even when made in the name of safety. They said that while the virus is believed to have originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, it’s important that it not be seen as a “Chinese virus.”

There have been more than 4,500 cases of the new coronavirus in China. Canada’s public health officials say that the risk to Canadians remains low.