Google is preventing employees from traveling to Italy, Iran, Japan, and South Korea because of outbreaks of the novel coronavirus, Business Insider reported. Amazon is asking employees to defer all nonessential travel.
Both companies had already halted employee travel to China, and Google temporarily closed down its offices in China at the end of January.
A Google employee in Zurich, Switzerland, has the novel coronavirus. Google emailed its employees to inform them that an employee tested positive for the virus, which causes the disease COVID-19. The employee was not symptomatic while in the office.
Amazon senior vice president Dave Clark wrote in an email that employees should not schedule meetings that call for travel until at least the end of April, The New York Times reported. Amazon is one of the leading buyers of corporate air travel, and it booked $220 million in flights in 2017.
There are currently over 83,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, worldwide. China has the largest number of cases, but outbreaks are escalating in countries like Japan and South Korea, which now has over 2,300 confirmed cases and 13 deaths.
