Google has joined Amazon.com, Facebook and Microsoft in recommending employees in the Seattle area to work from home, after many were infected with the coronavirus in the Pacific Northwest.
Seattle in Washington state has been most affected by the virus in the United States. Ten people have died out of 39 cases of infections through community transmission of the virus.
A Google spokesperson said the company made the decision after consulting with public health officials.
Seattle-headquartered Amazon recommended employees in the area to work from home through the end of the month, after an employee at its South Lake Union office complex in the city tested positive for the virus on Tuesday.
Facebook on Thursday said it would shut its Seattle office until the 9th of March after a contractor at the location was diagnosed with the coronavirus.
The companies’ work-from-home recommendation will affect more than 100,000 people in the Seattle area, as both Microsoft and Amazon employ over 50,000 each. Facebook employs more than 5,000 in the area and Google about 4,500, according to media reports.
Seattle health authorities have urged companies to allow their employees to work from home as much as possible, stagger shifts to ease commuter congestion on public transportation, and avoid large work-related gatherings.
The epidemic has shown no signs of slowing, and so far killed more than 3,000 people worldwide, mostly in China, where it is believed to have originated, back in December of last year.
Separately, retailer Walmart Inc said on Thursday it was restricting all international travels to business-critical trips, and travels within the United States to essential operations for its associates.
It also cancelled its US Customer Conference, scheduled for the following week in Dallas. Walmart said it expected travel guidelines to be in place for at least the months of March and April.
Big tech companies have also been dropping out of several conferences and calling off corporate events as the virus spreads. But many companies are now pushing for increased remote working, such as Twitter, who have exclusively turned their workforce into a remote one. While sales of the best web conferencing software our there and the use of platforms like Zoom have increased massively, many companies are feeling the pressures of reduced networking and collaboration.
The epidemic has led to the cancellation of major industry events including Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and Facebook’s F8 conference in San Jose, California.
Microsoft said on Wednesday that some “essential” employees should continue to go to their work locations and that the company would follow government guidelines for disinfecting its sites for essential personnel.
Initial reporting via our content partners at Reuters. Reporting by Ayanti Bera, Bhargav Acharya and Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru. Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Bernard Orr and Shinjini Ganguli. Additional reporting by Rob Phillips.