Over the past month, medical societies worldwide have been monitoring the escalating outbreak of the novel coronavirus and its effect on international and domestic travel and making difficult decisions to cancel or postpone their scientific conferences or make them available digitally.
On March 24, ASCO announced that it is canceling the in-person 2020 Annual Meeting, scheduled for May 29–June 2 in Chicago, and instead will present its scientific program in a virtual format during this timeframe. According to the statement, ASCO is exploring opportunities to present its educational program later this year.
“Our mission is as important as ever. That is why we still intend to deliver the latest cancer science to the global community during the Annual Meeting timeframe using a virtual format that respects the contributions of the authors and the work of the Scientific Program Committee. In addition, abstracts will be published online and in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on our usual schedule. ASCO’s educational program will not take place during this timeframe, and we are exploring opportunities for the future,” according to the statement.
Updates on the format of the virtual meeting, dates, specific content, registration, refunds, and other details will be available in the coming weeks and posted on meetings.asco.org/am/asco-statement-novel-coronavirus-covid-19.
Other major scientific meetings have also been postponed or canceled. They include:
On March 11, the World Health Organization (WHO) took the step it had been avoiding for weeks and declared that the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and the virus that causes it, now identified as SARS-CoV-2, had reached global pandemic levels, the first pandemic sparked by a...