Major companies dropping out of CES before attendees drop (updated)
With the Covid-19 Omicron wave expected to peak during CES, many larger companies are pulling out of in-person attendance. So far Amazon, Meta (Facebook,) Twitter, Pintrest, and T-Mobile have said they will not be attending or will be greatly scaled back due to Covid concerns.
Updated Dec 23, 2021 Google, Waymo, Lenovo announced some or all pullouts as of Wednesday
None of these companies have much of a draw for in-person that I can think of, so not a big loss although I might have been interested in what Meta was up to with their metaverse. And really, what was Pinterest showcasing?
In 2019 CES drew at least 182,000 people. Assuming 80% of that this year (145K) and a 5% breakthrough rate on vaccines in normal Covid times, 7,280 or so people in theory could be COVID positive at the end of the week and about 7 dead (based on 1/21th (vaccinated death rate) of 2% (average death rate) of people who know they had Covid-19).
Pocketables will probably not be attending because we’re cheap and the uncertainty of anything more than two weeks in advance in pandemic times is more than we wanted to risk. However if anyone has a hotel and a plane ticket, drop me a line ;)
[CNN]
