The participants were already notified directly via e-mail, but here is the most up-to-date version of the announcement.
You are for sure aware of the situation regarding the spread of COVID-19, more commonly known as āCoronavirusā, throughout Europe. As of now there are already more than 600 confirmed cases of the disease in Switzerland, more than 50 of them in the Canton of Geneva. Given the accentuated growth of the number of cases throughout the past week, organizations are putting in place strict policies as to minimize the probability of a larger scale problem.
After discussing the situation internally and taking into account the guidelines which have been set by CERN, we have chosen to postpone the Workshop , with the new date yet to be decided.
The reasons for our decision were the following:
- There were at least 5 participants who would have been excluded as per CERNās policy;
- Other participants were already cancelling due to the situation;
- There are new cases of the virus popping up every day in the greater Geneva region;
- Traveling to Geneva would mean, for many, passing through airports and potentially exposing themselves to the virus;
- It is not certain that the Workshop would happen anyway, as the situation is worsening in the region and CERN may have to simply forbid all events on campus (all visits and club activities have already been cancelled);
- While we could still hold the event via video-conference, the quality of interaction would be not nearly as good.
We pondered carefully whether this would be the best solution, as we know it could imply a monetary loss to some of the participants or their employers. We are very sorry about it and we hope this will not deter anyone from taking part in the event once we have a new date for it.
