Chinese Group Cancels SXSW 2020 Meet Due To Coronavirus

AUSTIN, TX — The novel coronavirus outbreak has impacted SXSW with the recent cancellation of a gathering of Chinese companies at the upcoming festival.

In a Feb. 6 letter to participants and SXSW organizers, the founder and CEO of China Gathering LLC wrote of the decision to cancel the event in light of the respiratory illness outbreak. Health officials are now calling the novel coronavirus COVID-19.

China Gathering has historically assembled prominent Chinese companies to SXSW toward assisting them find future success in the international market, officials described in last year's festival schedule. But given the scale of the illness outbreak, the gathering has canceled its appearance at this year's festival, the group's top officials wrote.

"The first few months of 2020 have been rough," Vivian Forrest, the company's founder & CEO, wrote. "After long and thorough discussion with my colleagues, we have decided to suspend the program of China Gathering @ SXSW 2020. This means that we have decided to cancel our planned Conference sessions, Mayor Summit, Trade Show Exhibition, Opening Reception, Music Showcase, Visiting Team, and the first-year China House. This has been a very difficult decision to make. I wish to express my sincere gratefulness to those who have worked diligently for this meaningful project."

SXSW 2020 takes place from March 13-22, bringing together individuals from across the world attending the massive conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conference staged annually.

"Although we need to take a pause this year, my colleagues, SXSW and I will always stay optimistic-we will have even more time to prepare for a very strong comeback in March 2021," Forrest wrote. "I sincerely believe that staying together and staying strong, we can find a way to stop the disease. Finger crossed for a brighter and healthier future-and we look forward to being even more involved in next year's SXSW!"

It's unclear if any musical bands or other artists from China have similarly canceled plans to attend. Patch reached out to festival organizers, and will update when details are known.

The new coronavirus outbreak has prompted other local responses. In late January, the Univeristy of Texas at Austin suspended undergraduates' travel to China in the wake of illness outbreak. An earlier this month, Austin ISD officials reported they had begun screening student and staff members for the illness amid the growing threat of its spread.

Related stories:

• UT-Austin Suspends Student China Travel Amid Coronavirus Outbreak
• Austin ISD Begins Screening For Coronavirus
• UT-Austin Researchers Map New Coronavirus Toward Vaccine Creation

Austin health officials apprise the public

Austin Health officials this week provided an update on the disease to keep local residents apprised of local monitoring. Local officials said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are responding to an outbreak of the respiratory disease that was first detected in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China and which has now been detected in 37 locations internationally, including cases in the U.S. The virus has been named “SARS-CoV-2,” health officials explained, and the disease it causes has been named “coronavirus disease 2019” (abbreviated “COVID-19”).

On Jan. 30, the International Health Regulations Emergency Committee of the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a “public health emergency of international concernexternal icon” (PHEIC). The next day, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex M. Azar II declared a public health emergency (PHE) for the United States to aid the nation’s healthcare community in responding to COVID-19.

In their assessment, Austin health officials provided a new coronavirus primer:

Situation in U.S.

Imported cases of COVID-19 in travelers have been detected in the U.S. Person-to-person spread of COVID-19 also has been seen among close contacts of returned travelers from Wuhan, but at this time, this virus is NOT currently spreading in the community in the United States.

Illness Severity

Both MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV have been known to cause severe illness in people. The complete clinical picture with regard to COVID-19 is not fully understood. Reported illnesses have ranged from mild to severe, including illness resulting in death. Learn more about the symptoms associated with COVID-19.
There are ongoing investigations to learn more. This is a rapidly evolving situation and information will be updated as it becomes available.

Risk Assessment

Outbreaks of novel virus infections among people are always of public health concern. The risk from these outbreaks depends on characteristics of the virus, including how well it spreads between people, the severity of resulting illness, and the medical or other measures available to control the impact of the virus (for example, vaccine or treatment medications). The fact that this disease has caused illness, including illness resulting in death, and sustained person-to-person spread is concerning. These factors meet two of the criteria of a pandemic. As community spread is detected in more and more countries, the world moves closer toward meeting the third criteria, worldwide spread of the new virus.
The potential public health threat posed by COVID-19 is high, both globally and to the United States.

But individual risk is dependent on exposure.

• For the general American public, who are unlikely to be exposed to this virus at this time, the immediate health risk from COVID-19 is considered low.
• Under current circumstances, certain people will have an increased risk of infection, for example healthcare workers caring for patients with COVID-19 and other close contacts of persons with COVID-19. CDC has developed guidance to help in the risk assessment and management of people with potential exposures to COVID-19.

However, it’s important to note that current global circumstances suggest it is likely that this virus will cause a pandemic. In that case, the risk assessment would be different.

What May Happen

More cases are likely to be identified in the coming days, including more cases in the United States. It’s also likely that person-to-person spread will continue to occur, including in the United States. Widespread transmission of COVID-19 in the United States would translate into large numbers of people needing medical care at the same time. Schools, childcare centers, workplaces, and other places for mass gatherings may experience more absenteeism. Public health and healthcare systems may become overloaded, with elevated rates of hospitalizations and deaths. Other critical infrastructure, such as law enforcement, emergency medical services, and transportation industry may also be affected. Health care providers and hospitals may be overwhelmed. At this time, there is no vaccine to protect against COVID-19 and no medications approved to treat it. Nonpharmaceutical interventions would be the most important response strategy.

CDC Response

Global efforts at this time are focused concurrently on containing spread of this virus and mitigating the impact of this virus. The federal government is working closely with state, local, tribal, and territorial partners, as well as public health partners, to respond to this public health threat. The public health response is multi-layered, with the goal of detecting and minimizing introductions of this virus in the United States so as to reduce the spread and the impact of this virus. CDC is operationalizing all of its pandemic preparedness and response plans, working on multiple fronts to meet these goals, including specific measures to prepare communities to respond local transmission of the virus that causes COVID-19. There is an abundance of pandemic guidance developed in anticipation of an influenza pandemic that is being repurposed and adapted for a COVID-19 pandemic.

Highlights of CDC’s Response

• CDC established a COVID-19 Incident Management System on January 7, 2020. On January 21, CDC activated its Emergency Operations Center to better provide ongoing support to the COVID-19 response.
• The U.S. government has taken unprecedented steps with respect to travel in response to the growing public health threat posed by this new coronavirus:
  • Effective February 2, at 5pm, the U.S. government suspended entry of foreign nationals who have been in China within the past 14 days.
  • U.S. citizens, residents, and their immediate family members who have been in Hubei province and other parts of mainland China are allowed to enter the United States, but they are subject to health monitoring and possible quarantine for up to 14 days.
  • CDC has issued the following travel guidance related to COVID-19:
    • China — Level 3, Avoid Nonessential Travel — updated February 22;
    • South Korea — Level 3, Avoid Nonessential Travel — updated February 24;
    • Japan — Level 2, Practice Enhanced Precautions — updated February 22;
    • Iran — Level 2, Practice Enhanced Precautions — issued February 23;
    • Italy — Level 2, Practice Enhanced Precautions — issued February 23;
    • Hong Kong — Level 1, Practice Usual Precautions — issued February 19.
  • CDC also recommends that all travelers reconsider cruise ship voyages into or within Asia at this time.
• CDC is issuing clinical guidance, including:
  ###liinterim Health Alert Network (HAN) Update to inform state and local health departments and healthcare professionals about this outbreak on February 1.
  • On January 30, CDC published guidance for healthcare professionals on the clinical care of COVID-19 patients .
  • On February 3, CDC posted guidance for assessing the potential risk for various exposures to COVID-19 and managing those people appropriately.
• CDC has deployed multidisciplinary teams to support state health departments with clinical management, contact tracing, and communications.

CDC has worked with the Department of State, supporting the safe return of Americans who have been stranded as a result of the ongoing outbreaks of COVID-19 and related travel restrictions. CDC has worked to assess the health of passengers as they return to the United States and provided continued daily monitoring of people who are quarantined.

This is a picture of CDC’s laboratory test kit for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). CDC is shipping the test kits to laboratories CDC has designated as qualified, including U.S. state and local public health laboratories, Department of Defense (DOD) laboratories and select international laboratories. The test kits are bolstering global laboratory capacity for detecting SARS-CoV-2.

CDC laboratories have supported the COVID-19 response, including:

• CDC has developed a real time Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction (rRT-PCR) test that can diagnose COVID-19 in respiratory samples from clinical specimens. On Jan. 24, CDC publicly posted the assay protocol for this test.
• CDC has been uploading the entire genome of the viruses from reported cases in the United States to GenBank as sequencing was completed.
• CDC has grown the COVID-19 virus in cell culture , which is necessary for further studies, including for additional genetic characterization. The cell-grown virus was sent to NIH’s BEI Resources Repository for use by the broad scientific community.