Many employees of Biogen are being told to work from home after three attendees of a management meeting tested positive for coronavirus.
In an emailed statement, the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech company said a number of attendees reported flu-like symptoms following the meeting, which took place in Boston last week. To date, three attendees have tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, though they are reported to be recovering and doing well.
“In an abundance of caution, all meeting attendees, with or without flu-like symptoms, have been directed to work from home for two weeks,” the statement read, noting that the company has been in contact with public health officials. “We are regularly communicating with all employees and directed all employees who are not feeling well to stay home and contact their healthcare provider as necessary.”
The company is also restricting travel through the end of the month, it said.
The Boston Globe reported Thursday evening that the meeting included 175 attendees, but that none of the infected employees lives in Massachusetts. The Tennessee Department of Health released a statement Thursday stating that a man who had traveled between Nashville and Boston was the state’s first case of SARS-CoV-2, and the Globe reported that he was believed to have attended the Biogen meeting.
As of Thursday, the number of people infected around the globe stood at 95,333, with 3,282 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. In the U.S., there were 99 cases and 10 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Several companies have begun telling employees to work from home in order to stem the spread of the virus. And on Thursday, HIMSS – a massive health technology conference set to take place in Orlando, Florida, whose attendance last year exceeded 42,500 – was canceled.
The two biggest lab testing companies in the country, Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, said Thursday that they would begin offering testing services for the novel coronavirus. Meanwhile, the state governments of New York, California and Washington have passed measures requiring insurance companies to cover costs of care related to COVID-19 testing. Washington, particularly the Seattle area, has emerged as a hot spot for the virus, with a nursing home in the suburb of Kirkland experiencing several deaths.
The Trump administration has been widely criticized for its response to the outbreak, with the CDC only lifting restrictions on testing Tuesday and President Trump himself making several controversial public statements, such as saying that people who have the virus can go to work and contradicting the fatality rate calculated by the WHO.
Photo: John Tlumacki, The Boston Globe, via Getty Images
