Coronavirus will have already caused losses of 500 billion dollars in technological events

There is no doubt that the Coronavirus has had an impact at various levels around the world and technological events have not escaped unscathed. Now, and according to estimates by data intelligence firm PredictHQ, this virus has caused a loss of about $ 500 billion in the economy of technology industry events. The Mobile World Congress (MWC) alone is responsible for a fall of around 480 million dollars.

The information was disclosed by Vox's Recode website, which had access to the data, and reveal the impact that this, which was already considered a very high international threat at the global level, has had in technology meetings. The company's estimate is that the direct economic loss from the cancellation of major technological conferences such as Google I / O, Facebook F8 and MWC totals US $ 500 billion.

However, it should be noted that this figure does not include what the event organizers, such as Facebook, would possibly profit from the conferences. The data only integrate issues related to airline travel, hotels, restaurants and transport from suppliers that, as a rule, would make money "at the expense" of these events.

Most of that amount, about 480 million dollars, is due to the cancellation of the 2020 edition of MWC, which should have been held last February in Barcelona. The Google event dedicated to app producers and stadiums, which will not happen after all, has caused an estimated loss of almost 20 million dollars. While events like Facebook F8 or Adobe Summit continue to have an online component, the truth is that these situations continue to have a negative impact on the economy.

The estimates only include data from four categories: air travel, transport, meals and accommodation, so the figures are expected to be much higher. In fact, these figures now released do not take into account issues related to the sponsors of events or purchases that employees could have made. In addition, the postponement of the Game Developers Conference, announced this week, is not counted in these figures.

In the last update of the General Directorate of Health (DGS) this Wednesday, the fifth positive case of Coronavirus in Portugal was confirmed, in less than a week. On the website entirely dedicated to Coronavirus, DGS answers frequently asked questions that have arisen, disclosing, for example, issues related to prevention and the situation in Portugal.

In view of this scenario, not even the social networks themselves have been indifferent. Pinterest, for example, has been asking users to remove misleading or false information about the virus outbreak. Facebook already promotes publications by the World Health Organization against fake news.