First Death Reported in U.S.; More Cases Likely: Virus Update - Bloomberg

First Death Reported in U.S.; More Cases Likely: Virus Update - Bloomberg
Google restricts travel as coronavirus outbreak spreads and employee in Switzerland tests positive - CNBC
Google announces $10 billion investment in US expansion amid government antitrust probes - CNBC
Google and Amazon limit employees’ travel because of coronavirus fears - The Verge
A week of coronavirus anxiety, in 11 Google searches - The Washington Post

Posted: 28 Feb 2020 01:54 PM PST

[unable to retrieve full-text content]First Death Reported in U.S.; More Cases Likely: Virus Update Bloomberg

Google restricts travel as coronavirus outbreak spreads and employee in Switzerland tests positive - CNBC

Posted: 28 Feb 2020 10:53 AM PST

People walk in Google's New York offices

Getty Images

A Google employee has tested positive for the coronavirus at an office in Switzerland, and the company is now restricting staff travel to Italy, Japan, Iran and South Korea, which have all seen the virus spread.

"We can confirm that one employee from our Zurich office has been diagnosed with the coronavirus," a Google spokesperson confirmed to CNBC's Deirdre Bosa. "They were in the Zurich office for a limited time, before they had any symptoms. We have taken — and will continue to take — all necessary precautionary measures, following the advice of public health officials, as we prioritize everyone's health and safety."

Google's Zurich office will remain open, a spokesperson told CNBC.

The case, which was sent out to employees in a notification email, was first reported by Business Insider. Google has about 120,000 employees.

Nearly 84,000 people have been infected with the fast-spreading flu-like virus, while at least 2,859 people have died. The virus was discovered in China in December and has since spread to at least 48 countries. At least nine coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Switzerland.

Companies across the globe are enforcing measures to stop the potential spread of the coronavirus, or COVID-19. Amazon, which has about 800,000 employees, has started restricting all nonessential employee travel in the U.S. and has restricted all travel to China "until further notice." Uber on Friday also restricted travel for employees to mainland China, Iran, and some regions of Italy and South Korea.

Several major tech companies have also pulled out from attending or canceled conferences scheduled through May.

Google on Friday canceled its Global News Initiative summit that was to be located in Sunnyvale, California in late April.

"We regret that we have to cancel our global Google News Initiative summit but the health and wellbeing of our guests is our number one priority," said Richard Gingras, vice president of news.

Earlier this month, organizers of the Mobile World Congress, the world's largest trade show for the mobile phone industry, canceled the event in Barcelona just two weeks before it was supposed to take place. Facebook canceled its Global Marketing Summit in San Francisco, which was to expected draw 4,000 people in early March, "out of an abundance of caution." Facebook, Sony and Amazon also pulled out of the Game Developers Conference scheduled for March in San Francisco.

WATCH: Coronavirus cases continue to rise around the world

Google announces $10 billion investment in US expansion amid government antitrust probes - CNBC

Posted: 26 Feb 2020 08:22 AM PST

Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer at Google LLC, speaks during the Google Cloud Next '19 event in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Tuesday, April 9, 2019.

Michael Short | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post Wednesday that the company is investing more than $10 billion this year in data centers and offices across the United States. The move comes as Google faces increased scrutiny from U.S. regulators.

Leaders of the House Judiciary Committee in September requested documents from the company, raising antitrust concerns. The Federal Trade Commission said in February that it's examining prior acquisitions made by Google parent Alphabet. And the DOJ in July announced a broad antitrust review of Big Tech.

Google will spend the money to expand its presence in Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New York, Oklahoma, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and California, Pichai said.

"These investments will create thousands of jobs — including roles within Google, construction jobs in data centers and renewable energy facilities, and opportunities in local businesses in surrounding towns and communities," Pinchai said in a statement. To put that figure in perspective, Google earned $46.08 billion in revenue in Q4.

It's also less than Google spent last year. In February 2019, the company announced it was putting up $13 billion to expand key locations and build data centers around the United States.

Google and Amazon limit employees’ travel because of coronavirus fears - The Verge

Posted: 28 Feb 2020 12:25 PM PST

Google is preventing employees from traveling to Italy, Iran, Japan, and South Korea because of outbreaks of the novel coronavirus, Business Insider reported. Amazon is asking employees to defer all nonessential travel, a spokesperson confirmed to The Verge, which includes domestic travel within the US.

Both companies had already halted employee travel to China, and Google temporarily closed down its offices in China at the end of January.

A Google employee in Zurich, Switzerland, has the novel coronavirus, a spokesperson confirmed to The Verge. "They were in the Zurich office for a limited time, before they had any symptoms," the spokesperson said in an email.

Amazon senior vice president Dave Clark wrote in an email that employees should not schedule meetings that call for travel until at least the end of April, The New York Times reported. The company is one of the leading buyers of corporate air travel, and it booked $220 million in flights in 2017.

Amazon is also canceling all on-site interviews for job candidates, Gizmodo reported. Interviews will be held over video chat.

There are currently over 83,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, worldwide. China has the largest number of cases, but outbreaks are escalating in countries like Japan and South Korea, which now has over 2,300 confirmed cases and 13 deaths.

The tech industry has seen significant impact from the ongoing outbreaks, including store closures across China and production delays. Organizers canceled Mobile World Congress after companies like Amazon, ZTE, and Sony pulled out, and Facebook canceled the in-person portion of its annual F8 developer conference.

Update February 28, 4:20PM ET: Updated with additional information on Amazon's interview policy.

A week of coronavirus anxiety, in 11 Google searches - The Washington Post

Posted: 29 Feb 2020 05:21 AM PST

One important caveat about Google trends data: It doesn't reveal exactly how many people are searching for a given term, it just gives a sense of whether that term has risen or fallen in popularity. So to approximate absolute search volume, presumably popular search terms like "Donald Trump" and "Kim Kardashian," will serve as guide posts.

1. "Coronavirus"

First let's set the lay of the land: Searches for "coronavirus" increased roughly sevenfold over the course of the week. You can tell that many, many people are interested because searches for the virus far surpassed those for "Donald Trump," who is usually the main driver of news in a given week. Searches really started taking off on Tuesday and continued to rise on Wednesday as Trump held a news conference on the virus.

Related terms like "coronavirus symptoms" saw similar jumps in popularity.

2. "Lysol"

3. "Perishable foods"

4. "Social distancing"

This is a term that we might start hearing more of if experts begin talking about coronavirus in terms of mitigation, rather than containment. It refers to practices people can use to keep other people at a literal distance to minimize their risk of passing on or contracting an infectious disease.

The term encompasses school closures, encouraging telework or canceling large events. While the search term has spiked in the past week, in absolute terms the Kardashian and Trump comparisons suggest interest remains fairly low.

5. "Cancel trip"

Speaking of social distancing, people are trying to figure out whether they need to cancel travel plans. The search data show that trips to Italy are of particular concern, given the scope of the coronavirus outbreak there. But so far this search has only reached one-ninth of a Kardashian in terms of popularity.

6. "Solano County"

7. "Carnivorous"

This is an odd one — searches for "carnivorous" briefly breached the Kardashian threshold on Wednesday. That day, the Daily Mail published an article critical of the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which several days prior had published a tweet pointing out that "coronavirus" and "carnivorous" are anagrams of each other. The tweet was widely mocked online.

However, that fact doesn't explain the concomitant rise in a related search: "carnivorous symptoms." Presumably the people searching for information related to the Daily Mail story would know that "carnivorous" is not the actual name of the disease. Both terms dropped off rapidly on Thursday.

8. "Dog coronavirus"

Some people are looking for information on how the disease might affect their pets. This phenomenon has been spurred largely by reports that a dog in China tested positive for the disease, although at the moment it's unclear whether a dog can even become infected.

People are also growing concerned about coronavirus implications for cats and cows, though the absolute volume of these searches appears to be very low.

9. "Beards"

10. "Contagion"

Not all coronavirus-related searches are seeking to soothe an anxiety. The 2011 Steven Soderbergh film "Contagion" is enjoying a renaissance in the coronavirus era, as are other virus-related movies like "Outbreak."

11. "Netflix stock"

Some people are, in fact, looking for opportunity in the epidemic: As the stock market has tanked, investors are looking for stocks that might be expected to do well in the event of a stateside outbreak.

"Netflix stock," for instance, was a big search this week under the assumption that people forced to stay home from school or work would be in need of entertainment. People searched for "Zoom stock" in the hopes that videoconferencing services would see a boost from the epidemic, and for "3M stock" under the assumption that the virus would be good for makers of personal protective gear.

All three stocks approached Kardashian levels as the week came to a close.

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