Niantic
The Abra Community Day for Pokemon GO will be postponed in Japan, South Korea and Italy until further notice, according to the in-game news post.
Update: It looks like the Abra Community Day will be postponed for all players, according to a blog post from Niantic.
While no reason was given for the delay, it’s reasonable to assume that it was due to concerns over the outbreak of COVID-19 coronavirus. The locations where the Community Day was postponed correlate with some of the biggest sites for the outbreak.
Last week, Niantic’s support account on Twitter announced that the Nidorino and Gengar Raid Day event was cancelled in the same countries.
Nidorino and Gengar Raid Day has been canceled in Japan, South Korea, and Italy. Please stay tuned to our channels for updates.
South Korea has the second highest outbreak of the virus outside of mainland China where the virus originated, with 2,931 known cases in the country according to The Guardian.
The Italian civil protection chief said that there are now 820 cases of the virus in Italy and 21 deaths, according to The Guardian. More than 50,000 people across 11 villages and towns 40 miles southeast of Milan are under quarantine, according to The Washington Post. World Health Organization officials said that Italy was one of the notable drivers of the spread of the virus with 24 cases moving from Italy to 14 other countries including Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Nigeria.
The Japanese health ministry confirmed that a British man who was a passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship has died Friday, marking the sixth death of a former passenger of the cruise ship and the 11th death total from the virus in Japan according to The Washington Post. There were over 700 cases of the virus from the ship with another 200 reported within Japan, according to the publication. Japan declared a state of emergency in Hokkaido island, the location of the 2020 Olympic marathons this summer. Organizers said that they will release plans next week to scale back the torch relay. The publication also reported that United cancelled flights to Japan.
49 countries have reported cases of the virus, according to The Guardian.
The Coronavirus outbreak has led to cancellations of major events in gaming all over the world. The official website for the Game Developers Conference announced that the event has been postponed after a number of high profile companies and games industry developers cancelled their appearances, including Microsoft, Sony, EA, Facebook, Blizzard Entertainment, Epic Games, Amazon, Unity, and Hideo Kojima according to The Washington Post. Matches for popular eSports games like Overwatch, League of Legends and Pokemon have been cancelled in China and the Asia-Pacific region according to gamesindustry.biz.
The Abra Community Day will take place everywhere else on the world on March 15, 2020. The event will go live for players in the northern hemisphere from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time and players in the southern hemisphere from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. local time. During this time, Abra will have a higher chance of being encountered in the wild with players having a small chance of obtaining its shiny form. Abra evolved all the way up to Alakazam either during or up to two hours after the event will learn an exclusive attack move. Lure Modules will last for three hours and players will earn three times the XP for catching Pokemon during the event.
New to this Community Day is an exclusive Special Research quest that players can complete during the event. A ticket for the Special Research costs $0.99 and will award the player with 13,000 Stardust, a Poffin, a Rocket Radar, three Incense and more after completion. The ticket is nonrefundable.
See also: