Red Hat cancels San Francisco summit over coronavirus concerns, shifts to virtual event
Raleigh-based open source software company Red Hat is canceling its annual tech summit because of health concerns around COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Red Hat will now make its summit a virtual event rather than holding it in person. The summit was scheduled to be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center April 28-29.
The company made the decision Wednesday afternoon, a day after a North Carolina patient tested positive for COVID-19 and several other cases were reported across the U.S.
It also came just a few days after Red Hat announced it had to shut down its office in Toronto after a person who tested positive for coronavirus entered another tenant’s space in the building the company shares there.
So far, there have been 80 cases of coronavirus reported in the U.S. and nine deaths from the disease, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
On Wednesday, California reported its first death from the coronavirus and the state’s governor declared a state of emergency in response to the spreading illness there, The Los Angeles Times reported.
The San Francisco ABC affiliate reported that the man who died was aboard a cruise ship that had sailed from San Francisco to Mexico. It said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was investigating “a small cluster” of cases linked to the ship.
The Red Hat Summit is a popular annual event that brings together avid members of the open source software community.
Many Triangle-based tech companies have now canceled events that were scheduled to be held in San Francisco in the coming weeks.
Cary-based video game maker Epic Games said last week that it would not attend the 2020 Game Developers Conference scheduled to be held in San Francisco.
And IBM, which has a large presence in Research Triangle Park and owns Raleigh-based Red Hat, also canceled plans to attend the RSA Conference in San Francisco.
Red Hat said it is still working through many of the details of how the free, virtual event will work, though it is promising that the same keynotes and breakout sessions will still happen.
The company said registered attendees will have the option to roll over their conference passes to next year’s summit or receive a refund. It is also canceling all hotel reservations made through the conference website, and will not charge attendees for those reservations.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
This story was originally published March 4, 2020 at 9:15 PM with the headline "Red Hat cancels San Francisco summit over coronavirus concerns, shifts to virtual event."
