Twitter directed thousands of employees around the world to work from home to limit the risk of contracting or spreading the coronavirus.
The social media platform sent a memo to its roughly 4,800 employees on Monday, advising them to work from home if possible. The directive is mandatory for employees working in Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea, partly due to government regulations.
“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 about the instructions. “We recognize that working from home is not ideal for some job functions. For those employees who prefer or need to come into the offices, they will remain open for business.”
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The company added that its cleaning crews are “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.”
Other Silicon Valley companies, such as Amazon and Facebook, are also taking special precautions to protect their employees from the coronavirus. Amazon has canceled all nonessential travel for employees, and any worker who must travel for business will need to get their trip approved by the vice president.
Facebook has told its employees that they are free to work from home if they want. The tech company has also stopped allowing nonemployees to visit and tour any of its global offices.
The coronavirus started in the Chinese city of Wuhan last year and has since spread to dozens of countries. It has infected more than 90,000 people and killed roughly 3,100 globally.
