Alphabet, the parent company of tech giant Google, has asked its staff in the US and Canada to work from home amidst the coronavirus outbreak.
Last week, Google sent a memo to Washington State staff to work from home but has now expanded the request to employees in the US and Canada. The new memo will cover almost 100,000 workers across 11 offices in the two countries.
Chris Rackow, Google's vice president of global security, wrote an email to workers saying: "Out of an abundance of caution, and for the protection of Alphabet and the broader community, we now recommend you work from home if your role allows."
However, Alphabet said its offices in North America will remain open for those whose work require them to come in.
Tech companies asking employees to work from home
Several tech firms, including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook, began asking staff in Seattle to work from home as the coronavirus spreads in Washington state.
Washington has over 160 cases as of Monday night, with an employee at Amazon and an employee at Facebook testing positive with the coronavirus.
In a blog post, Twitter asked its employees to work from home to help stop the spread of the virus and that it was mandatory for staff in Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea to work remotely.
The social media firm claimed that it was "strongly encouraging" all of its 5,000 employees around the world to not to go into their offices.
Meanwhile, Google has launched several initiatives to combat the outbreak, including temporarily banning ads for medical face masks and establishing a Covid-19 fund, so temporary staff and vendors can take paid sick leave if they have symptoms of the virus.
The tech giant also partnered with the UK's NHS to help prevent the spread of misinformation about the outbreak, by promoting correct health and travel advice when people search for coronavirus treatments or symptoms
