Google halts international travel for all employees worldwide due to coronavirus concerns

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• Google has banned its employees from traveling internationally for work, according to multiple sources within the company.
• Last week, an employee in Google's Zurich office tested positive for the coronavirus disease, prompting further travel restrictions at the company.
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Google has barred its employees from traveling internationally for work as fears around the coronavirus continue to grow.

The outbreak is causing mounting disruption to businesses around the world - interrupting supply chains and forcing the cancellation of major events. COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has sickened more than 90,000 people around the globe, and killed more than 3,000.

In an email sent to employees earlier this week, Google told workers they would not be permitted to travel internationally unless they were granted an exception for critical work, a source familiar with the matter told Business Insider. Employees currently traveling were advised to return home. The memo said that there was no new guidance for employees traveling domestically.

The news comes after Google asked its thousands of Dublin staffers to work from home after a worker exhibited flu-like symptoms, and an employee in Zurich tested positive for the coronavirus. Google has also effectively canceled its Google Cloud Next conference in San Francisco, switching it to an online-only event.

Google previously restricted employee travel to Italy, Iran, China, Japan, and South Korea.

It's not clear if the travel ban also applies to employees at Google's parent company, Alphabet.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

This story is developing...

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