Google has announced that it will be postponing reopening of its U.S. office to September as COVID-19 continues to ravish the US, in a second wave of rising infections.
The threat of COVID-19 hasn’t been as drastic and as visible as in the US, which has went on to report more cases than anywhere else in the world. However, the country had managed to somewhat curb the staggering curve, and decided to open up the economy earlier this summer. That turned grave very soon, with the curve, that had somewhat flattened, reaching heights never seen before. Thus, Google’s May announcement, where it decided to reopen buildings in more cities at roughly 10% of their capacity, became redundant.
The company thus announced late on Tuesday, that it was delaying the reopening of its US offices by around two months because of a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases in some states. All of Google’s U.S. offices will now remain closed at least until September 7, Google spokeswoman Katherine Williams told Reuters.
Williams confirmed the presence of a company wide memo on the same, which was earlier uncovered by Bloomberg. In the memo, Chris Rackow, Google’s vice president of global security, wrote ,”For all of you that are working from home, please continue to do so unless you are told otherwise by your manager.”
“We don’t expect this guidance to change until Monday , September 7 ( Labor Day) at the earliest”, Rackow wrote, adding that the recent rise in coronavirus cases in United States demonstrates that “COVID-19 is still very much alive”.
Google has been trying to adjust to these hard times, which don’t seem like they will be ending very soon.
The company had made a contribution to help global economy fight against the trauma of COVID-19 with the announcement of “Global Journalism Emergency Relief Fund” to help local newsrooms. Google had also earlier committed $6.5 million to “fact-checking efforts” related to COVID-19.
Deadly COVID-19 outbreak is still evolving in USA as Tuesday saw 44,358 new coronavirus cases. According to the Covid Tracking Project, the seven day average for new daily cases has doubled since 13 June and the hospitalisations in the country jumped by the highest number since 21 April.
