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Comment by clement_b | Hacker News Reader

This is a very sad news for the city of Barcelona and for everyone involved in organizing or exhibiting. But that was the right choice.

I'm wondering what's next to be cancelled.

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Olympics are this summer, could be at risk if it hasn't been contained by then, especially given the proximity of Japan to China/mainland asia.

Could the Olympics be postponed a year? There's no president for this, but if the disease can't be contained, it seems prudent.

I was planning on visiting Japan this summer. Now I'm somewhat hesitant to do any travel.

I assume you mean precedent, and there is something of a precedent with the 1940 Summer Olympics.

The 1940 Summer Olympics was cancelled, not postponed.

They were rescheduled (and relocated to Helsinki) first, so the Olympics have been rescheduled before. (On re-reading about it I now realise they were pre-poned, not post-poned, though!) And yes, they were subsequently canceled.

Summer is not a good time for a virus since the don’t survive Heath and the sun so well.

Given the number of cases in Singapore, this may not be the case for this virus.

Plenty of Singapore buildings have A/C. Some of the clusters so far include two churches, one Chinese medical store, and Grand Hyatt Singapore.

It would only take a few super spreaders during the Olympics to start a true pandemic

So far they say they're "not being considered", which is quite worrying if that means they're not even planning ahead to it as a possible outcome. I sure hope they make the right decision if it becomes necessary, instead of forcing through due to being too preoccupied with national/personal pride.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/canceling-tokyo...

Tons of things have been canceled in APAC generally. MWC was arguably at least somewhat unique among shows in the Americas and Europe because of the combination of its size, the large Chinese presence, and timing. So far other events I'm aware of over the next couple of months are still on though, of course, that could change.

I wonder if there will be an impact on Google i/o and Apple’s WWDC. Especially when it comes to Asian visitors.

Those are quite a ways out and aren't super-large events. If those were to end up being impacted, it means a lot of travel/events/activities are being impacted.

One problem with MWC is that tons of exhibitors & speakers would be traveling there from Asia, including from China. Google and Apple's events can still go ahead with fewer visitors (or a different set of visitors), but MWC would have to adjust quite a lot about the event itself if companies from Asia don't send their people.

F1 Chinese GP was announced as being canceled/rescheduled today. Interesting that they're canceling events that are scheduled that far out, it wasnt supposed to happen until April 19th.

Logistics for a F1 race means equipment, and I assume staff start leaving for China in the next few weeks.

This video is basically an ad for DHL but goes through some of the logistics aroun F1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH6Loko0BOA

It takes months to set that up, and crews would be coming from all over.

> But that was the right choice.

Why?

People will die because it was cancelled. The worlds economy is starting to fail.

But it's not up to the MWC 2020 organisers to help prop up the world and save lives.

Why in particular was it a correct decision here?

Several major participants had already backed out or substantially lightened their presence, and a single transmission of the novel coronavirus at MWC would be a disaster for Barcelona as well as GSMA. Not something easily forgotten.

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