SVEPM 2020 — Resilience and community support in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic: The Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine Annual Conference, extraordinarily held online

The 2020 Annual Meeting of the Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine (SVEPM) was scheduled to take place in Westport, Ireland, March 25−27. The committee reviewed 68 abstracts and prepared a scientific programme that included 21 oral presentations, 89 posters, 30 poster pitches, and five hands-on workshops. The local organising committee, chaired by Damien Barrett, prepared an excellent social schedule to welcome delegates to Westport. All this work was nearly finished when, in January 2020, the world focussed on news describing the emergence and spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. As epidemiologists we followed closer still, and in a true disease outbreak mitigation approach, by the time the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on March 11 2020 that the COVID-19 outbreak was a pandemic, our preparation phase had already begun with the committee having met in a virtual environment several times. We had discussed the ramifications and implications of physically convening for 202 registered participants at our annual event; we were ready to communicate a decision to not go ahead with the physical meeting in Westport. To keep our membership informed of our planning, we held our Annual General Meeting online, consistent with the planned meeting schedule.