Coronavirus has the world’s biggest companies and conglomerates at the defensive, with more and more companies going out of their way to curb the spread of the ‘Wuhan’ virus. Recently, Facebook has announced that it will be closing down its headquarters in Heathrow, London, albeit temporarily, for a deep cleaning.
The decision came as a precaution, and mostly because an employee based in Singapore and working at the Singapore headquarters who made a visit to the London facility has tested positive with the virus. Said person visited the branch during 24th-26th of February and contacted a lot of company personnel.
It is unclear who he came in direct contact with, and if said people had been diagnosed, but Facebook says that it has contacted all of them, and issued safety instructions for those who might be at the greatest risk.
The company said that it has advised people who operated directly with the Singapore employee to remain in isolation and be vigilant when and if they develop any symptoms related to the the disease. However, containing the spread, if it happens, will be very hard as the London branch employs about 3000 people across all divisions. It will become evident in the coming weeks how many people have been infected, as COVID 19 takes about 2 weeks before it starts showing symptoms. Therefore, it is too early to make any predictions yet.
Coronavirus has become the next ebola, taking the world by storm and ushering in mass hysteria and fear across the masses. Media is in frenzy about the virus, but the question looms, are we being educated or are we being terrorized? In people belonging between the age group of 10-50, the virus has a fatality rate ranging between 0.2% to 3.6%. While it does warrant attention, and there is no denying that it has taken a lot of lives, the need of the hour is education of the masses and to stay calm.
However, media and other parts of the society have built a monster that is bigger than what we are ready for and built a stigma around the virus that haunts more people than the virus itself.
