Red Hat’s Toronto office closed after person with coronavirus entered building
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Editor’s note: On Tuesday, March 3, North Carolina reported its first case of COVID-19, in a Wake County resident who was exposed at a Washington state long-term care facility. Find details on the case here.
Red Hat offices in Toronto are closed after a person who tested positive for coronavirus entered another tenant space in the building, according to a statement from Red Hat Sunday.
The offices will be closed at least until March 8 “to allow for coordinated deep cleaning of our office suite and the building’s common areas,” said the statement emailed by Stephanie Wonderlick, Red Hat vice president of corporate communications.
Red Hat associates in Toronto were asked to work from home while the offices are closed, according to an email sent to associates.
The person who tested positive was last in the building Feb. 25, according to the email.
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In the email, the Raleigh-based software company advised a self-imposed quarantine for 14 days for any associates who have come into contact with people showing symptoms of coronavirus.
No employees from the Raleigh area have visited the Toronto Red Hat offices in recent weeks, Wonderlick said in a phone interview. The company employs about 2,000 people in downtown Raleigh.
In an emailed statement to The News & Observer Thursday, Red Hat’s parent company, IBM, said it was monitoring the status of the coronavirus and has restricted travel to and from places impacted by the virus, including regions of China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Italy and Japan.
Neither the employees from IBM in Research Triangle Park nor Red Hat in downtown Raleigh have been asked to work from home.
This comes a day after the state of Washington’s Department of Health confirmed the first coronavirus death in the United States, according to the Associated Press.
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Coronavirus is part of a family of viruses common in animals. They rarely get transmitted to humans.
The virus causes respiratory illness with symptoms that include fever, cough and shortness of breath. The symptoms may appear in two to 14 days. The seriousness of the illness varies, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The coronavirus respiratory illness was first detected in Wuhan, China. More than 86,000 cases have been confirmed globally, including at least 74 confirmed cases in the United States, CNN reported. More than 2,800 cases have been fatal.
Red Hat will continue to review the situation and will send an update to employees by Thursday, the email to associates in the Toronto office said.
This story was originally published March 1, 2020 at 4:51 PM.