How Twitter, Facebook, and Google Are Preparing for the Coronavirus
From vaccines to remote job interviews, here’s how companies are working to prevent the spread of COVID-19
Jake Glanville thinks about coronavirus on a daily basis. The CEO of Distributed Bio in San Francisco was featured in the new Netflix series Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak for its work on developing an antibody for influenza. Now his team of 30 biohackers work long hours to develop a vaccine to treat the deadly coronavirus raging across the world.
But over the weekend, Glanville’s focus shifted when one of his own employees fell ill and was hospitalized. It turned out the person was sick with the flu — not COVID-19 — but the outbreak feels ever closer. By Monday night, six people with the coronavirus had died in Washington state and five Northern California counties reported new cases of COVID-19. Twenty-four hours later, an Amazon employee in Seattle was sick with coronavirus. “This suddenly became very personal,” Glanville says. He was thinking about family, his community, and his employees. “It’s no longer abstract, something over in China.”
The quick spread of the virus has prompted similar concerns throughout Silicon Valley. Many of the CEOs who have quickly jumped into action on this issue…
