Paranoia and outrage in a city determined to carry on as usual

If you had landed at Pearson International Airport in Toronto yesterday, your first glimpse of the city skyline would have revealed the soaring needle of the CN Tower against an azure spring sky. Would you have been tempted to take a ride up it? Hardly. Too cramped, too many tourists, too much shared air.

Some would say you were brave even to go to the city. On Wednesday, the World Health Organisation said it should be avoided, because of its continuing battle with the respiratory Sars virus. But you are there and you will find a city still functioning but profoundly depressed about its predicament.

Residents, such as Marketa Havlik, 31, a web designer, are feeling emotions ranging from mild paranoia about their own health, anger at the WHO for clumping Toronto with Beijing and determined all the while to carry on as usual.

"It's a bit crazy. I think that they overreacted," she said. "When you see them listing Shanxi province, Beijing and then us, it's really a big shock, especially since China has been lying about its cases of Sars and we have been telling the truth".

Is she taking special precautions? Of course. "I wash my hands before eating anything and if someone is sniffling on the subway, I move."

And everyone is worried about the impact it will have on the city, its image and its economy. The government is trying to persuade the WHO to rescind its advisory but the damage has probably already been done. Conventions are being cancelled and hotel occupancy rates are down.

The gloom is everywhere, including at the CN Tower. Bud Purves, president of the CN Tower, said: "I'm not going to sugar-coat this; I think it will have a very severe downturn on us. This is going to hit the pocketbook of every person in Toronto." Restaurants, bars, cinemas are all reporting reduced customer numbers.

The one place absolutely no one wants to visit is any kind of hospital. It was one hospital, in the suburb of Scarborough, that had the first Sars cluster that it was later unable to contain. There have been 16 deaths from the virus in Toronto so far.

Angela Hagithemelis, 36, a computer programmer, had to visit a hospital on Wednesday for a check up on an arm injury. She could not even get beyond the lobby before answering detailed questions about her state of health, her recent movements and having her temperature taken.

Most despairing are the city's leaders, among them Mayor Mel Lastman, who says he has "never been angrier in his life" since the WHO's announcement.

"Let me be clear," he said. "If it's safe to live in Toronto, it's safe to come to Toronto, it's safe to visit this city. This city is ... if you just look outside, look at the kids playing, look at everybody going to work, look at the malls ... look at the Eaton Centre and see what's going on and see all the people there. The hockey game didn't have an empty seat ... This isn't a city in the grips of fear and panic."