Amazon and Sony, have joined other world tech giants to drop out of the Barcelona’s tech event, due to the widespread of the deadly coronavirus outbreak.
The two tech companies were reported to have pulled out of the Mobile World Congress, which is one of the world’s biggest annual business conferences taking place in Spain.
According to the report by CNN, tech giant Amazon in a statement announcing their pulling out from the tech event had said:
“Due to the outbreak and continued concerns about novel coronavirus, Amazon will withdraw from exhibiting and participating in Mobile World Congress 2020, scheduled for Feb. 24-27 in Barcelona, Spain,” the statement said.
Sony also issued a similar statement following the coronavirus outbreak, saying:
“As we place the utmost importance on the safety and wellbeing of our customers, partners, media and employees, we have taken the difficult decision to withdraw from exhibiting and participating at MWC 2020 in Barcelona, Spain.”, the company said.
The CNN reports added that the latest withdrawals follow Ericsson and LG Electronics, who announced last week they also wouldn’t attend the Tech event.
The Tech event organizers said Monday that Mobile World Congress will go ahead as planned and that they would ban access to all travellers from the Hubei province.
Organizers outlined additional safety measures including temperature screening. All travellers who have been to China will also need to demonstrate proof they have been outside of China at least 14 days before the event.
Officials in China and around the world are working to contain the coronavirus outbreak, which began in December.
The total number of deaths from the coronavirus outbreak has topped 910, according to authorities, officially outpacing the global death toll from the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2003.
More than 40,500 cases of the virus have been confirmed worldwide, with the vast majority of those in mainland China.