Enlarge /. Mark Zuckerberg speaks at Facebook's F8 summit in 2018.
Facebook cancels its massive F8 developer conference because of fears of COVID-19. The conference was scheduled to begin on May 5 in San Jose, California.
"F8 is an incredibly important event for Facebook and one of our most popular ways to celebrate all of you from around the world. However, we need to prioritize the health and safety of our developer partners, employees, and everyone who supports F8." "wrote Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Facebook's director of developer platforms.
Facebook will try to compensate for the completion of the main event with "locally hosted events, videos, and live streaming content," said Papamiltiadis.
In recent months, organizers of major international events have become increasingly angry about the risk that their venues could support the global spread of the corona virus. Earlier this month, the Mobile World Congress was canceled at the last minute because of concerns about the corona virus. Several large companies have also announced that they will withdraw from the game developer conference – although the conference organizers have announced that the show will continue.
Efforts to curb the spread of the corona virus to China have been increasingly unsuccessful in recent days. According to a balance sheet, hundreds of people in South Korea, Iran and Italy are infected.
The number of known cases in the United States is still relatively low – around 60. However, on Thursday, authorities reported a possible first case of spreading the community: someone who has contracted the coronavirus without traveling abroad or to be in contact with other well-known transport companies.
