Coronavirus caution: Twitter tells employees in 3 countries to work from home while other companies take slow steps towards protecting staff

• Twitter is ‘strongly encouraging’ its employees around the world to work from home.
• Twitter is one of the first companies to actively encourage all of its employees to avoid visiting offices if possible.
• Other companies like Google are still testing their preparedness.

Amid growing concerns surrounding coronavirus, Twitter has asked its employees in its offices in Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan to mandatorily work from home. This comes a day after it banned its employees from all non-essential travel and events.

In addition to this, Twitter is ‘strongly encouraging’ its 5,000 employees around the world to work from home. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also cancelled his trip to the SXSW conference that is scheduled for later this month.

“We are strongly encouraging all employees globally to work from home if they're able. Our goal is to lower the probability of the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus for us - and the world around us,” Twitter said in a blog post.

Other companies are recommending work from home, too

Google has asked employees in its Dublin office to work from home on Tuesday as it tests its preparedness for a possible coronavirus outbreak in Europe. The 8,000 employees will be back in office from Wednesday.

Oyo has restricted travel to and from China, with exceptions for a few critical business functions. In addition to this, it has asked its employees in China to work from home.

Cryptocurrency exchange platform Coinbase has asked its employees to ‘start working from home’. Further, it has encouraged its employees who are ‘likely to get sick’ or ‘for whom getting sick would be particularly problematic’ to move to 100% work from home.



According to a report in The New York Times, Facebook has advised its employees to ‘feel free’ to work from home.

Amazon has reportedly asked its 7,98,000 employees to cancel all non-essential travel. However, Amazon and Walmart truck drivers say that they haven’t been advised as to how to deal with the coronavirus scare, which is especially important for them as they deal with imported goods and packages.

Other companies including Apple, Microsoft and Facebook have also imposed travel restrictions.

Several major tech conferences have already been cancelled due to coronavirus

Several major tech conferences around the world have been cancelled due to the coronavirus outbreak. Some of these include:

• Mobile World Congress
• Facebook F8
• Google News Initiative Summit
• Microsoft MVP Global Summit
• Geneva International Motor Show

See also:

Coronavirus scare forces a Noida school to shut down

The spread of Coronavirus could shrink India's diamond exports by a fifth

An internal Microsoft memo tells employees to talk to managers about coronavirus travel concerns - and some employees say it's not enough