For the coronavirus, Twitter and Google ask their employees to do "home office"

03/03/2020 - 17:08

• Clarín.com
• international

Twitter asked its employees around the world to work from home to try to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

In turn, on Tuesday, workers at Google's European headquarters were called to do the same, following the flu symptoms of one of them.

The Covid-19 epidemic spread to all continents since its appearance in central China at the end of the year and has already killed more than 3,100 people and infected more than 90,000.

Twitter's decision to ask its employees to avoid going to the office is in line with the measures taken by governments in some of the most affected areas.

"We strongly encourage all employees in the world to work from home if they can do it," said human resources manager Jennifer Christie . "Our goal is to reduce the likelihood of covid-19 spread among us and in people around us."

Google also decided to take measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus (EFE).

For employees of the social network in South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan - three of the territories where the disease was most widespread - working from home is mandatory , Christie said.

For its part, the digital giant Google employs about 8,000 people in Ireland , whose capital has its European headquarters. One of them reported having flu symptoms, although on Tuesday it was unknown if it was the coronavirus.

As a precaution, the US group asked all employees who were in contact with it to work from home and monitor their health status until the situation is clarified.

"We continue to take precautionary measures to protect the health and safety of our workforce; according to the advice of medical experts, and as part of that effort, we have asked our Dublin teams to work from home today," a spokeswoman said in a statement.

The company said it was taking advantage of the situation to check its level of preparedness to face an eventual outbreak.

Ireland has only one confirmed case of covid-19 , a man who returned from northern Italy.

With information from AFP