March 20 (UPI) -- The Daytime Emmy Awards ceremonies honoring excellence in television have been canceled, organizers announced.
"In light of #COVID19, we sadly cannot move forward with our planned trio of ceremonies for 2000+ attendees in June. We are working on alternative ways to best recognize our honorees and will share more details in the weeks ahead," the events' Twitter feed said Thursday.
Daytime Emmys are traditionally presented to artists involved in children's, educational and news programs, game and talk shows, and soap operas that air in the morning or afternoon.
"Given our concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic, we have decided that we will not be staging the 47th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards in Pasadena this coming June. As there are so many unknowns right now with the flow of information changing on a daily, almost hourly, basis, it would simply be irresponsible to move forward with our annual celebration of excellence in daytime television at this time," NATAS Chairman Terry O'Reilly said in a statement.
This year's South by Southwest and Tribeca film festivals were recently canceled, and the Cannes film festival has been postponed because of the global pandemic.
Most schools, theaters, theme parks and performance-arts venues are also closed and film productions have been shut down in an effort to discourage people from gathering in large groups.
