Facebook said an employee in Seattle has been diagnosed with coronavirus. This is the first known infection within the company as the virus continues to spread in the region.
The employee, a contractor, was last in Facebook’s Stadium East office in Seattle on February 21. The company alerted employees Wednesday night and said the Seattle office will be closed to all employees until March 9. Employees in Seattle are also being encouraged to work from home until the end of the month.
“A contractor based in our Stadium East office has been diagnosed with the COVID-19,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to Bloomberg. “We’ve notified our employees and are following the advice of public health officials to prioritize everyone’s health and safety.”
Apart from Facebook, Google and Amazon employees too have been tested positive for the novel virus that has been spreading rampantly around the world. While a Googler in the company’s Zurich office has been diagnosed with the virus, an Amazon staffer in the company’s Seattle headquarters has been tested positive for the infection.
Separately, tech companies have started asking employees to work from home owing to the virus outbreak. Amazon, Google, Coinbase, Twitter and Microsoft have already made the announcement. Other companies are likely to follow the suit.
