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Facebook cancels F8 Developers Conference citing coronavirus outbreak

Posted at 1:22 PM, Feb 27, 2020
and last updated 2020-03-02 11:26:22-05

Facebook announced Thursday that it is canceling its annual F8 Developers Conference amid the outbreak of COVID-19, better known as coronavirus.

The event was slated to be held at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center on May 5 and 6.

Konstantinos Papamiltiadis, Facebook's Director of Platform Partnerships, made the announcement on the company's "Facebook For Developers" website.

"This was a tough call to make — F8 is an incredibly important event for Facebook and it's one of our favorite ways to celebrate all of you from around the world — but we need to prioritize the health and safety of our developer partners, employees and everyone who helps put F8 on," the company said in its announcement.

Facebook's announcement came days after the CDC said community spread of the virus in America was "inevitable," and asked Americans to prepare for disease to make an impact on their daily lives. The CDC confirmed the first case of coronavirus from "unknown origin" on Wednesday night.