Wuhan Coronavirus: Mobile World Congress Cancelled from Fear of Infection

Despite several serious attempts to reassure mobile tech giants against the threat of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection were made by the GSMA, the Mobile World Congress has been officially cancelled, Gizmodo reports.

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Mobile World Congress Concedes to Coronavirus

This comes on the heels of a slew of absenteeism announcements from the most renowned brands in the mobile tech space, including Facebook, Amazon, Samsung, Nokia, Nvidia, and many, many others.

Earlier on Wednesday, the GSMA attempted to assuage public panic by offering strengthened health safety measure, hoping this would prove sufficient to guarantee safety to the undecided mobile giants. The GSMA even banned visitors not just from Wuhan, but from the entire Hubei province of China. In what feels more like a borderline-desperate attempt at policy, they also said that madatory temperature screenings would be in place as a final stop-gap.

Other companies declaring non-attendance out of health concerns regarding the coronavirus (COVID-19) threat include Cisco, AT&T, Sony, Sprint, Intel, NTT Docomo, and TCL. These absentees came after earlier announcements to the same effect from Ericsson, ZTE, and LG. Click here for a full play-by-play of mobile companies' non-attendance announcements.

Unfortunately for everyone in the mobile and tech worlds, the show is officially off, but the GSMA has left an open invite to all absentees, hoping for a better turn-out for next year's event.