Tech firms push telework as Amazon employee confirmed with coronavirus

Enlarge / Google's Dublin, Ireland, headquarters, currently sitting mostly empty as the 8,000 workers based there have all been told to work remotely. (credit: Hollie Adams | Bloomberg | Getty Images)

The spread of the novel coronavirus is doing for tech firms what no other argument for remote work apparently could, as Google, Facebook, and others are asking employees to stay home while they do their jobs.

Those policies are looking ever more like sensible precautions, as this week Amazon has confirmed that an employee based in Seattle tested positive for the virus. The employee apparently went home feeling sick on February 25 and has not returned to the office since. Two Amazon employees based in Italy also are confirmed to have contracted the virus.

Washington state's King County-home to Seattle and its tech-heavy suburbs Kirkland, Redmond, and Bellevue-is the site of the biggest US outbreak of COVID-19 so far. Microsoft, which is also based in the Seattle area, is now allowing employees based in its Seattle or San Francisco offices to work remotely through at least March 9.

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