(VOXtra) - In a gut-wrenching week of concerns for the voice over community amid the worldwide spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, VoiceoverCity LLC president Gerald Griffith has announced postponement of this year's VO Atlanta 2020 conference, which had been scheduled for March 26 to 29.

"The VO Atlanta Voiceover Conference for 2020 is officially being postponed until a later date," Griffith announced in an email at 10 pm Eastern today.

"An official announcement and additional details to be provided tomorrow (Thursday) afternoon," he added, which will include a video. "Thank you for your continued encouragement and support as my team and I work to RE-ENVISION the future of the VO Atlanta Voiceover Conference."

Increasingly seen as inevitable, the decision is a loss to the camaraderie and commerce of this annual conference, the world's largest gathering of voice over professionals. Yet it's also a relief to registrants who'd become leery of what would have been an "elbow bump" four days of worry about the virus.

Earlier in the day, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the COVID-19 coronavirus had become a "pandemic"- a disease spreading worldwide. And across the U.S., business, sporting and other types of events were being cancelled or postponed to prevent the spread of the virus to attendees.

VoiceOverXtra will post VO Atlanta updates as they become available.