It's nearly that time of the year again, where the mobile industry descends on Barcelona, Spain -- Mobile World Congress. But South Korean giant LG ELectronics has said it has pulled out of the event over the coronavirus outbreak.
An LG spokesperson told The Verge: "With the safety of its employees and general public foremost in mind, LG has decided to withdraw from exhibiting and participating in MWC 2020 later this month in Barcelona, Spain. This decision will prevent needlessly exposing hundreds of LG employees to international travel, which most health experts have advised".
LG continued: "In lieu of its participation in MWC, LG will be holding separate events in the near future to announce its 2020 mobile products".
GSMA, the organizers of Mobile World Congress, have said that the show will indeed go on -- they said there has been "minimal impact on the event thus far" over coronavirus. GSMA will be enforcing some policies at the show to side skirt the disease infecting MWC 2020 attendees.
The trade group will be pushing a no-handshake policy, and "aggressive" measures when it comes to cleaning microphones and demo booths. The dreaded CES flu is a yearly issue for people in the tech industry, with myself and plenty of my industry friends sick yearly over it -- but it ain't no coronavirus.
My next question is: will Computex 2020 be affected?