Thanks, Coronavirus: Ireland Cancels St. Patrick's Day Parade

Hundreds of thousands of people come to Dublin each year for Ireland's biggest St. Patrick's Day parade, but not this year. The government has canceled the event thanks to the outbreak of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, RT.com reports. Typically, about 100,000 people from abroad would travel to Ireland for the parade, and doctors have been calling for its cancellation amid public health concerns. The country's health minister said Monday that Ireland expects a "rapid escalation of cases" in the coming days, and could end up dealing with an outbreak on the scale of Italy's.

Other cities around Ireland have been canceling their own St. Patty's Day parades in recent days; as of now, New York's parade, which is actually the biggest one in the world with an estimated two million attendees, is still on. So is Boston's, and Fortune reports many are wondering why neither one has yet been canceled. (More coronavirus stories.)