The Linux Foundation is continuously monitoring the Novel Coronavirus situation to ensure the safety of our event participants and staff. We will be following all recommended guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) as the situation progresses.
Despite the cancellation of MWC Barcelona, many other significant conferences are still occurring and we have no plans to cancel events in general. Note that the WHO is currently advising against the application of any restrictions on international traffic. Based on the information currently available on the outbreak, the CDC is recommending standard safety practices that should be instituted during any flu season, and there are no US Dept of State Travel Advisories for countries other than China with relation to Novel Coronavirus.
For the safety of our event participants, we will institute numerous safety measures and guidelines to ensure everyone’s health and wellbeing including:
- Keep up-to-date information on our event websites pertaining to the status of the event, and precautions for attendees onsite
- Send email communications to registered event participants with any pertinent updates leading up to the event
- Provide plentiful sanitation stations onsite at the event with alcohol-based hand sanitizer and wipes, tissue and facemasks
- Provide signage onsite encouraging attendees to practice Respiratory Hygiene, ie to cover your mouth and nose with a flexed elbow or tissue (not your hands) when you cough or sneeze; avoid touching your hands, nose, and mouth to avoid transferring germs from surfaces; discard a used tissue immediately into a closed trash can, and wash your hands with an alcohol-based sanitizer and/or soap and water right away.
- Provide signage to encourage attendees to maintain Social Distancing, ie to adopt a no-handshake policy at the event and stand a minimum of 3 feet (1 meter) from other people, especially those that may be sneezing, coughing and/or exhibiting cold/flu symptoms.
- We will regularly sanitize all surfaces through the event space and communicate with the venues to do the same
- We will be sanitizing speaker microphones between each speaker’s use
- Request that anyone sick or experiencing any cold/flu-like symptoms stay home for their own safety and the safety of others, and consider substituting a co-worker to attend in their place.
- We ask that any attendees onsite who might begin experience cold or flu-like symptoms (fever, cough, trouble breathing), to please seek medical care right away. We will have local medical care contact information available for all attendees and can assist any attendee with transportation to a local clinic.
We also ask all registered attendees to self-certify that if they have traveled to China in the last month, they ensure that at least 14 days have passed from the time they arrived from China to the event and that they have shown no flu-like symptoms in that time. If they have, we ask that for their own safety and the safety of other attendees, they substitute another attendee in their place and refrain from attending the event.
We will continue to regularly check the latest official information leading up to the event and encourage our event participants to do the same. We understand that there is a lot of fear and uncertainty right now as we are in the early stages of the outbreak and a lot is still unknown, however, we want to ensure we’re making decisions based on factual recommendations rather than rumor or fear.
Recommended Resources:
World Health Organization (WHO) Novel Coronavirus Daily Situation Reports:
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Situation Summary:
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html
Real-Time Data Dashboard from Johns Hopkins University: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
US Dept of State Travel Advisories:
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories.html/
