COVID-19 – Corona Virus – Event Cancellations for March/April 2020

As you all can read from the press or see on TV or your preferred internet news page (not Facebook!!!), things here in Europe and I guess in the rest of the world change rapidly. In January we may have looked with interest or fear towards China and kept our fingers crossed, but since early February it is clear that the virus couldn’t be contained. In the last days a lot of countries in Europe have done things my Dad yesterday told me “never has happened in the 73 years of my life”. As of this morning, Germany closed its borders to many neighborhood countries. This is like locking the door when your best friends are ringing the door bell, and you keep silent inside.

Photo by Kenny Luo on Unsplash

Not only I got used so much to what our Europe is built on: The ability to travel freely, mostly without borders. And of course, we all grew up in a society where everybody can do whatever she or he wants to. Within the rules of the society and the laws.

This has now be changed quickly. And drastically. And of course, it has an effect on our work, too. I have colleagues and friends in Italy, Spain and Austria who are locked in at home. This is very scary on one hand, but it seems to be the only way to slow down the spread and prevent the hospital emergency system from collapsing.

Event Cancellations for March/April 2020

For me, two weeks ago an email flood started. I discussed daily with Roy and with people from marketing, presales or ACS if we need to cancel this or that event. And there is always this crucial question: Where do we move the event to? Right now, everybody hopes that after a few weeks, the situation clears up and we can get back to normal. Let’s cross our fingers.

As of now, we canceled the following events and workshops:

• March 24: Upgrade Workshop in Luxembourg
• March 25: Upgrade Workshop in Brussels
• March 26: Upgrade Workshop in Utrecht
• April 5: Upgrade Workshop in Qatar
• April 6: Upgrade Workshop in Qatar
• April 7: Upgrade Workshop in Muscat
• April 28: Upgrade Workshop in Helsinki

For customer visits, we are switching to “Zoom” mode – which is the policy at most customers as well already.

Right now, we proposed new dates but I will communicate them once it is more clear how things develop.

Please Take Care

Please take care. Especially in countries where you watch now with interested what we guys do in Europe. You may have read it a thousand times already, but the best you can do against the virus is to wash your hands regularly (not just let a bit of water flow over them but use soap for at least 20 seconds) and stay away from crowds. Take special care on seniors – those are the ones being in danger the most. And don’t believe nonsense spread via Facebook or Twitter or other platforms. I read things like “use bleach to disinfect your throat“, or people (and populist politicians) constantly downplaying the danger, especially for elderly.

If you’d like to watch the current development and numbers – under the consideration that many countries don’t either have enough tests or numbers reported my be not correct for various reasons, this is the page I use. Be also aware that the analytics page has some glitches and does not always reload everything correctly:

• Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)

Take care!

–Mike