Tech Giants Ask Seattle Employees To Work Remotely As Coronavirus Cases Rise

Technology companies with offices in Seattle are asking employees to work from home as the number of confirmed novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to rise in the city.

What Happened

Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, Alphabet Inc. GOOGL GOOG, Microsoft Corporation MSFT, Twitter Inc. TWTR, and Facebook Inc. FB have all asked their employees to work from home if possible, as noted by The Verge earlier.

Social media company Facebook and e-commerce giant Amazon have both confirmed cases of COVID-19 among their employees in Seattle.

"We are recommending that employees in Seattle/Bellevue who are able to work from home do so through the end of the month," Amazon told CNBC in a statement on Thursday.

Amazon, which is headquartered in the city, had earlier confirmed two other cases among employees in Milan, Italy.

Facebook shut down its Seattle office as a contractor tested positive for the virus, and similarly asked employees to work remotely, as reported by CNBC earlier.

Why It Matters

Regular life in Seattle is affected as it became the hub of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States.

At least 51 cases of the COVID-19 have been confirmed in the city, according to data from the Johns Hopkins University. Ten people have died from the virus so far, and only one has recovered.

A majority of these technology companies alongside Apple Inc. AAPL and Tesla Inc. TSLA also continue to suffer a loss of business from the massive outbreak in China, where more than 80,000 cases of the virus have been confirmed.

Apple and Microsoft downgraded their expectations for the earnings in quarters affected by the coronavirus outbreak.

Price Action

Amazon closed 2.62% lower at $1,924.03 on Thursday. Facebook stock closed 3.44% lower at $185.17 per share.

Alphabet Class A shares closed 4.84% lower at $1.314.76, while Class C shares closed 4.87% lower at $1,319.04.

Twitter's shares were down 2.86% at $34.97 at close.