Important information regarding Coronavirus

What's known about COVID-19 and what our organization is doing, including important travel restrictions.  

⚠️ Pyn note to HR: This guidance was created at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. It appears here as a historical record. More up-to-date guidance can be found in the following communication:  Possible exposure to COVID-19

What you need to know about the Coronavirus

Team, I want to assure you that the health and safety of our employees is our number one concern. We know that many of you are actively monitoring the Coronavirus outbreak, as are we. We continue to believe the risk to most employees is low, with a slightly elevated risk to our team in our [add office. e.g. China, Japan, Italy, Korea]. We do not see any transmission in or around our offices. For China we have put our tier 1 response plan into place (see below for more) and, among other things, are encouraging everyone in that office to work from home.

We’ve outlined your need-to-know’s below and you’ll also find our detailed escalation plan. If you have any further questions please feel free to reach out to our HR team. We’ll continue to update everyone as needed via Pyn and on slack at [insert channel].

I also want to thank and recognize the many people across our teams who have been working to manage our global response and ensure our preparedness as well as those on the front lines of confronting this public health emergency. 

More information can be found at: 

• https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019
• https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/summary.html

What we’ve already done to ensure your safety:

• Updated travel restrictions: Business travel to China and Hong Kong is still restricted.  Additionally, we have added Japan, Italy, and South Korea to the business travel restricted list. Please flag any personal travel to—or layovers in—countries on the restricted list to our people team so we can help you make a plan
• Reviewed current HR policies and procedures in reference to communicable disease management.
• Placed educational posters in key areas and increased our supply of hand gels, tissues, etc.
• Reviewed our business continuity plan (BCP)  for communicable disease 
• Reviewed internal and external communication measures. 
• Made available information and advisories via [insert hotlines, websites or text message system alerts]
• Provided access to infectious disease experts to our global and expat employees
• Reaffirmed our cleaning crews are meeting a standard of cleanliness in every office. Deep cleaning is done in all offices either on a nightly or weekly basis depending on the size of the office.  
• We have a standing Crisis Management Team continually reviewing new information as it comes in

While the threat of coronavirus remains small, here are some precautionary measures to take.

U.S. based employees are far more likely to have influenza than coronavirus, but the same precautions are recommended: 

• Wash your hands regularly for at least 20 seconds with soap and water. Use an alcohol-based hand sanitizer if soap and water are not available.
• Shield your sneezes and coughs with a tissue or shirt sleeve (not hands).
• Stay at least three feet away from coughing and sneezing 
• Avoid touching your face 
• If you are sick, please stay home. 
• The Center for Disease Control (CDC) advises those who are sick wear face masks to avoid the spreading of germs. Masks are available at [insert] The CDC advises healthy people not to wear them.
• Keep a 30-day supply of food staples and medication in your home. 
• Have a plan in case a family member falls ill
• Parents should assess childcare options in case schools close. 

What is a coronavirus? 

• Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses, some of which cause the common cold; others found in bats, camels and other animals have evolved into more severe illnesses.
• The coronavirus referenced in news headlines is a newly identified strand, officially named COVID-19.
• The new virus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019 and has since spread globally. These first reported cases had links to a live animal market, suggesting the outbreak started from animal-to-person spread.

What are the symptoms? How does it spread?

• Patients with COVID-19 experience mild to severe respiratory illnesses. Symptoms include fever, cough and difficulty breathing and can appear two to 14 days after exposure, according to the CDC.
• Around 80 percent of confirmed Chinese cases were mild, the New York Times reported, and the overall fatality rate is around 2.3% in China. Comparatively, the seasonal flu has a mortality rate of about 0.1 percent.
• The coronavirus mainly spreads from human to human. Like the common cold, the virus is transmitted when a person coughs or sneezes.
• It's also possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface with the virus on it before touching their mouth, face or eyes.

More details on our four tier escalation ladder 

We have established a four tier escalation ladder (from tier 0 to tier 3) (more details below) 

The primary criterion for moving up the ladder is the number of community transmission events within a commute radius of an office. 

All offices except Japan are at tier 0. 

• Tier 0 includes improved sanitation measures (both in terms of office cleaning and in terms of making things like hand sanitizer available) as well as continuous risk monitoring via a crisis management team. 
• At tier 1: we encourage as much work from home as possible, limit in-office meetings, visits and services and make or review concrete plans to move critical workflows to offices that are not impacted. 
• At tier 2 we close the office to non-essential personnel/activities/events and execute those workload movement plans.
•  At tier 3 we lock down the office entirely, and go to 100% mandatory wfh.

Triggers and Actions

Phase 1 Triggers

More than 100 instances of virus transmission between people who are not close relatives/living in the same house and outside of a hospital setting, occurring within the commuting radius of a given office.  Measured mortality rate remains 1% or above (10x the seasonal flu). Observed transmission rate remains above 1.5.

Phase 1 Actions

• We may ask certain populations of employees to WFH in the impacted area (e.g. if there is a hotspot of transmission)
• We will offer optional WFH for all employees in the impacted area (especially important for those with potentially vulnerable populations at home, the very young, very old or those with otherwise compromised immune systems).
• We will enhance office cleaning schedules to be more frequent/in-depth, especially around areas of high traffic (elevators, meeting rooms, bathrooms, food areas) along with specific mask disposal bins.
• We will limit office visitors to essential personnel only (and work with recruiting to e.g. move interviews to video calls where possible)
• We will ask all leaders to start making plans for continuity of operations/identification and movement of critical workloads/personnel to other offices or to WFH.

Phase 2 Triggers (aka local containment is failing)

More than 1000 events as above or any government quarantine actions in the commute range of a office.  Measured mortality rate remains 1% or above (10x the seasonal flu). Observed transmission rate remains above 1.5.

Phase 2 Actions

• We'll work with individual business owners to execute their critical workload movement plans to whatever office seems least impacted.  
• stop meal service in impacted office(s).  Potentially moot, as we expect most employees will be voluntarily wfh at this point.
• stop all visitors to the office(s) OR institute a visitor health screening program (e.g. airport style infrared camera in the office lobby + basic screening questions).  Again, may be moot.

Phase 3 Triggers (aka containment has failed, it’s going to be a wild ride)

More than 5000 infections with an increasingly upward trend (Doubling interval is 10 days or less).  Measured mortality rate remains 1% or above (10x the seasonal flu). Observed transmission rate remains above 1.5.  

Phase 3 Actions

• mandatory WFH in the impacted area(s)
• All workload movement plans executed, including potential relocation of essential personnel outside the danger area.
• We would expect our ability to use 3rd party services like cleaning, snacks, etc to start to break down because of fear driven absenteeism.
• Regional isolation in the impacted area