CES, the world's largest technology show, is pressing on, but with fewer major exhibitors appearing in-person than expected due to rising COVID-19 cases in the United States. On December 22nd, exhibitor Lenovo announced that it would "suspend all on-site activity in Las Vegas," following announcements from T-Mobile, Amazon, Meta, and others that they'd be ditching as well and despite CES organizers' statements that the show would go on.

T-Mobile was the most prominent exhibitor to bail early that week. CEO Mike Sievert, one of the Consumer Electronics Show's featured speakers, publicly announced on Tuesday that he would no longer be doing a keynote and would "significantly limit our in-person participation."

Amazon decided not to attend the show in-person entirely, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, and AT&T also dropped out on Wednesday, according to Axios' Ina Fried.

Hisense typically has a large press conference and significant presence in the LVCC's central hall, but on Thursday morning, Hisense announced it decided to make its January 4th press conference fully virtual "to ensure the health and safety of our team." The company still plans to have a booth at the show, with in-person walkthroughs for those attending and virtual ones for those covering it from home.

It was followed closely later in the day by Waymo, as Alphabet's self-driving car company updated its blog post to explain the decision. "Based on quickly rising COVID-19 infection rates, Waymo has made the difficult decision not to participate in person at CES 2022. We are aiming to still virtually participate in some CES-related events. In particular, as part of our Self-Driven Women series, our co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana and our Global Head of Public Policy Michelle Peacock will speak at several virtual panel discussions with the Female Quotient, the official equality partner of CES 2022."