Microsoft has been taking a number of actions to protect its employees from the coronavirus outbreak. The company recently started encouraging employees to work from home, for example.

However, due to the recent outbreak of coronavirus in the Washington state, two of Microsoft employees have been diagnosed with coronavirus, the software maker confirmed earlier this morning.

CNBC reports that both of the affected employees are based in Puget Sound, which is where Microsoft’s Redmond HQ is located. One of the affected employees works on the LinkedIn team, which is owned by Microsoft.

Microsoft now has two workers who tested positive for coronavirus. One worked on main campus and had close contact with small number of other employees. The other was a remote LinkedIn worker and had no contract. Both in quarantine now.

— Dina Bass (@dinabass) March 6, 2020

Both of the employees are in quarantine now, and Microsoft is taking actions to ensure more employees do not come in contact with the virus. “Local health experts have determined that this individual had no known contact with other employees while infected and, based on that fact, there is no risk to those who work at LinkedIn from this case,”  a LinkedIn spokesperson said.

Amazon also reported an employee testing positive for coronavirus earlier this month, and one of Facebook’s contractors also tested positive for the virus.

Microsoft announced on Thursday that the company will continue to pay hourly workers their wages, even though there’s less on-site presence needed from the hourly works due to more employees working from home. Microsoft said the company will continue to pay all 4,500 of its hourly works in Puget Sound their regular wages, even if their work hours are reduced. This is a brilliant move from the firm, and it’s exactly how these big corporations should be supporting their employees and the local community at this time.

Tagged with Coronavirus, Microsoft