AMC promotes social distancing at cinemas, half books its theatres

AMC is the largest movie theater chain in the United States, and has just announced plans it is pushing forward with social distancing plans -- cutting down theater attendance by 50% to reduce the chance of COVID-19 coronavirus spread.

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The company will now only sell half the tickets per theater that it does now, with any theater that can seat over 500 people to be capped at 250. AMC will also be complying with local and federal restrictions on large social gatherings, where it will be limiting ticket availability and screenings in some of its auditoriums, too.

AMC Theaters boss Adam Aron, said in a statement: "The health and safety of our guests and theatre teams are of the utmost importance to AMC. Therefore, AMC is proactively taking action to cut in half the number of tickets that we will make available at all our US theatres. With this action, who still want to see movies on a big screen".

The cap on AMC Theaters begins on Saturday, 14th of March and will run through to April 30.

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Bitcoin has dropped in price significantly, with a huge 40% reduction in its price from highs of $10,000 to a new 2020 low of less than $5000. Apple stock has also tumbled, dumping $300 billion from its market cap and reducing it to just over $1 trillion ($1,000,000,000,000).

Apple has recently postponed an event over coronavirus, where it was due to unveil new iPhones and a new iPad.

New York Governor Cuomo has established a 1-mile containment zone in New Rochelle over the spread of coronavirus / COVID-19 in New York, while Google has recently asked all staff based in Canada or the United States to work from home if they can. Apple has just canceled an event where it was due to unveil a successor to the iPhone SE, and a new iPad, too.

Delivery start ups including Postmates have now got a "non-contact delivery option" for those who are worried about contracting coronavirus, too.

We've seen some gigantic events being canceled or postponed over coronavirus / COVID-19 fears, with Mobile World Congress, the Game Developers Conference, Google I/O, Facebook's F8 developer conference -- and even chatter from Dick Pound, a member of the International Olympic Committee, with the IOC talking about outright canceling the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.

Google has also ended all of its in-person job interviews for now over coronavirus fears, instead shifting to a digital-only Hangouts meeting for future employees. Twitter is also "strongly encouraging" its employees to work from home if possible, while Amazon has halted its near 800,000 strong workforce from all non-essential travel over coronavirus / COVID-19 fears.

But don't worry, gamers... as AMD has confirmed that the next-gen Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 launches are "on track" for later this year and that coronavirus hasn't forced a delay for these launches (yet).

You can read more on our coverage of coronavirus here.