E3 is "Monitoring and Evaluating" the COVID-19 Situation

In recent days, the games industry has started taking the coronavirus more seriously. Microsoft and Epic Games pulled out of GDC, and then GDC followed up by postponing their event for a few months when hopefully the outbreak will be more contained. Both Riot Games and Blizzard have postponed significant eSports events, particularly in Asia, and researchers are already turning to gamers to help better understand how the virus could be tackled.

But GDC and esports events arent the only major gatherings that the industry promotes. and now that San Francisco has issued a state of emergency over the pandemic, E3 organizers have announced that while theyre not canceling the event, or postponing it, they monitoring and evaluating the situation.

Heres what they said, specifically, at their website:

The health and safety of our attendees, exhibitors, partners, and staff is our top priority. While the ESA continues to plan for a safe and successful E3 show June 9-11, 2020we are monitoring and evaluating the situation daily.

Our E3 team and partners continue to monitor COVID-19 via the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). We are actively assessing the latest information and will continue to develop measures to further reduce health risks at the show.

Unfortunately for people who are excited for E3, its looking increasingly unlikely the situation is going to get any better anytime soon. The disease appears to be spreading daily, with increased infections and fatalities, and not to get too political, but our current administrations handling of the disease so far has been lets call it less than encouraging. The E3 convention is in early June we should hope the Corvid-19 outbreak is contained by then in any case, but now we have just one more reason.

It's a reason at the very bottom of the list, but a reason nonetheless.