In order to protect the WOC participants and visitors to the orchid show from contracting the COVID-19, The City of Taichung announced to postpone the “23rd World Orchid Conference and Show”, which was scheduled for March 9-18, 2020 at the former Flower Expo site in Waipu, Taichung, Taiwan.

The city government of Taichung said, “although tremendous efforts have been placed on organizing the orchid conference and show and plenty has been done to keep everyone safe, in light of a possible disease spread and to comply with the national policy to contain the virus, the City of Taichung and Taiwan Orchid Growers Association have jointly decided to postpone this event to a later time in 2020 after the COVID-19 has subsided.”

“It took many years of efforts to secure the right to host the World Orchid Conference”, said the Agriculture Bureau of the City of Taichung which is the WOC sponsor. The City further stressed that “Due to health concerns and to comply with the national healthy emergency policy, following extensive deliberations, we decided to postpone this long anticipated major orchid event. We do recognize the difficulties for those who have nearly completed their orchid exhibits as a result of the postponement.  We hope that WOC 2020 will soon be resumed later in the year after the threat of COVID-19 no longer exists.”