The organizers of the IUCr2020 continued in the preparation of the congress despite uncertain situation until very recently. The development of Coronavirus pandemic is rapid and spread all over the World.
The Czech government introduced very strong restrictions in quite early stage and our border is completely closed. It is similar in many other countries. Predictions and models show quite a long-time development that will probably last for months. Even in case that we are allowed technically to organize the congress this August, many people will not be willing to travel, people from some countries may not be allowed to leave their countries or enter the Czech Republic, the sessions may not be filled and overall congress could easily end up in disaster. A few days ago, we were contacted by the Prague Congress Centre. The most of other summer events have been now postponed to next summer and they needed urgently our decision, if we would want to do the same. The only possible time in 2021 is August 13-22 that we fortunately booked a couple of weeks ago to have some reserve.
Then we started discussion in the IUCr executive committee that responded quickly with a clear recommendation of postponing all planned crystallographic meetings by one year, as possible. This was the most critical issue for the ECM-33 that is planned for August 2021 in Versailles. Fortunately, our French colleagues replied very quickly that this would not be any principle problem and the ECA is also prepared to do it. We are very grateful for this. Of course, there are also other meetings that may be forced to be postponed. Finally, the IUCr EC approved the postponing of the congress at its virtual meeting on March 25.
It was not an easy decision. We are very sorry for all the participants who have registered and were looking forward to the congress and visit of Prague. Nobody knows what will be the next year but by postponing the congress we have at least a good chance that the situation will be better, and we will have a nice meeting as planned. Simply, we arrived at the decision that the organization of the IUCr2020 this August is already too risky, and it loses main sense. We also wanted to avoid the situation to be forced to cancel the meeting a few days before the beginning as it already happened to some large congresses. The situation is extraordinary and never happened.
We are awfully sorry for those who have already made reservations (travel, accommodation) and hope that they will be able to get money back. The registered people and companies will receive separate mails.
We are going to keep original scheme with respect to weekdays, and to keep current reservations for the exhibition unless they are cancelled.
Web page information will be changed accordingly in next hours.
Radek Kužel, the IUCr2020 chair
March 26, 2020