Although Apple traditionally holds a company-wide fitness challenge for all of its employees around the globe during the month of February, the Cupertino firm will postpone it this year, in the face of the coronavirus outbreak and the associated store and office closings in China.
Employees are usually challenged with closing all three of their Apple Watch’s Activity rings every day during the month, with those that successfully complete the task earning a reward.
However, Apple earlier this week sent out an email to employees, informing them about the delay:
The Close Your Rings Challenge is one of those rare opportunities to bring team members and colleagues from around the world together with a common purpose to close our rings, earn some points, and have fun. With a number of our offices and stores closed in China right now and some of our team members unable to participate, we’ve decided to postpone the 2020 Close Your Rings Challenge. At this time, our Challenge will be removed from the Challenges app.
We’ll update everyone as soon as we have a new date when we can all focus together in closing our rings!
Apple is set to reopen its Chinese retail and corporate office locations on February 9, so the competition could be reinstated any time after that date.
The reward for employees that successfully complete the 2020 challenge will be a t-shirt that says “2020” in an Apple Watch Activity Ring-style font.
The World Health Organization has declared the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak a global public health emergency. For more information about the virus, visit the WHO website.
(Via MacRumors)