Hi all,

Apologize in advance to add more discussion regarding COVID-19.

As decided in the APIO delegation meeting in the last year's IOI, Indonesia is supposed to organize Asia-Pacific Informatics Olympiad (APIO) 2020. We have planned to run it on 9-10 May 2020, as we have announced it on our website.

However, we realize that the situation of the world regarding COVID-19 has changed rapidly in just a matter of days. Therefore, APIO 2020 organizer is currently considering our options regarding hosting APIO 2020. Given that IOI 2020 is postponed and will not take place any earlier than September 2020, we realize that APIO delegations might adjust their team selection timeline, thus affecting their participation in APIO if it is still hosted in May. We also realize that several national informatics olympiads have been canceled which might affect their participation in APIO as well.

If we still have to host APIO 2020 in May, we understand that the long-standing APIO regulation which enforces contestants to be supervised/invigilated in a contest site is not feasible. This is due to lockdown and quarantine policies in several countries, as well as discouraging gathering of several people in the same place. In other words, we will have to conduct a full online APIO where contestants can solve the problems from their place and trust them to follow the rules of APIO 2020.

We would like to hear any thoughts from the competitive programming community, regardless of whether you are an IOI/APIO contestant or coach, and also regardless of whether you are representing an APIO delegation country or not. Should APIO 2020 be postponed as well? Is it okay to run a full online APIO? However, as you might imagine, please understand that this is an unofficial discussion just to get an idea of what people are thinking. We might conduct an official survey that is directed to only APIO delegation leaders at a later date.

Jonathan, on behalf of APIO 2020 Organizer.