Their announcement follows earlier news that cases of the viral infection have been identified in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Sonoma and Placer counties. And that four additional people had died from COVID-19 in Washington state. Bringing the total U.S. death toll to six. Noting from their blog post, “Our goal is to lower the probability of the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Not only for us but also the world around us.” “We also have the responsibility of ensuring that the health and safety of our employees and partners is not compromised. We have continued to monitor the situation closely and are adjusting our internal policies to respond to this rapidly-evolving situation. On February 29, we informed our people and started notifying partners that we are suspending all non-critical business travel and events.” Additionally, Twitter has as well suspended all non-critical business travel and events. This is in order to prevent their over 4800 staff from any chances of contracting the virus due to exposure. Notably, the tech giant will be working to make sure internal meetings. All hands, and other important tasks are optimized for remote participation. Twitter also recognizes that working from home is not ideal for some job functions. Therefore, the office will remain open for those employees who prefer or need to come into the offices, To take more precautions, the Twitter Real Estate & Workplace team is increasing deep cleaning and sanitizing in all spaces, as well as more visual reminders for personal hygiene best practices and pre-packaged, pre-composed, and pre-plated food options. “Working from home will be mandatory for employees based in Hong Kong, Japan. And also South Korea offices due in part to government restrictions. Our criteria will evolve over time as we get more information. we will continually communicate to affected Tweeps as appropriate.”
