Zhen Yu Yong, a blockchain developer has confirmed that he contracted the novel coronavirus after he attended two recent Ethereum conferences. Yong was a participant at both ETHLondon and Ethereum Community Conference that took place last week.
Yong, who is the co-founder of Torus Labs made the announcement confirming his infection via a tweet on March 11. He also urged those that had close contact to him during the two conferences to take extra precautions as well as be tested. Yong got overwhelming support in response to his tweet with the crypto community at the forefront of wishing the developer well.
I fell ill yesterday and have just been diagnosed with #COVID2019. Everybody who had close contact @EthCC_ or @ETHLondon with me should take extra precautions and/or get tested
— Zhen (@zenzhenyu) March 11, 2020
The manner of Yong’s infection is a stark reminder of the potency nature of the COVID-19. At first, he was unaware that he had contracted the virus as infected individuals are usually asymptomatic in the first few days following infection. Medical studies have shown that the symptoms start to manifest five days to two weeks after one is infected. The virus is still infectious during this incubation period thus posing a great risk to any individual that come into contact with those carrying the disease.
Following this logic then it is highly probable that he passed on the virus to several other attendees. As such, it is advisable for the Ethereum Conference attendees to get tested even if they are not showing any symptoms.
COVID-19 continues to plague the blockchain space by causing major disruptions to planned events with some already cancelled and others postponed. The crypto community continues to urge other organisers to cancel their events, especially in light of this unfortunate news. With the virus, continuing to spread it is becoming highly likely that the Consensys 2020 conference scheduled for May 13 will be cancelled. The Consensys conference attracts prominent players in the blockchain space and a massive audience of crypto enthusisats that significantly overshadows the ETHLondon conference by far. In the unlikely event that it is not cancelled, it is likely to record a low turnout as more people take precautionary measures to avoid infection.
The coronavirus epidemic also continues to wreck havock in both mainstream finance and crypto markets. At the beginning of the week, stocks recorded the worst crash since 2008 with the downward spiral persisting throughout the week. The crypto market was also not spared with Bitcoin price falling daily and struggling to break multiple support level. Altcoins have followed suit with drastic declines recorded on March 12 where the crypto market lost over $50 billion of total capitalization.
Image courtesy of Pixabay
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