An illustration of the new coronavirus COVID-19. Image courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control.
Companies are restricting business travel, implementing work-from-home policies and switching to virtual conferences to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
Commercial real estate brokerage Avison Young said it has withdrawn from participation in the MIPIM property conference which begins today in Cannes, France, following previous announcements by Cushman & Wakefield and Blackstone Group.
Along with dropping out of the MIPIM conference, Avison Young said it has postponed large internal meetings and told employees to avoid non-essential travel.
Anticipating a surge in work-from-home demand, Boston-based LogMeIn last week said it would provide a three-month trial of its GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar software to existing customers.
A large Salesforce conference which was scheduled to begin Thursday in Sydney, Australia was converted into an online meeting.
The Building Owners and Managers Association BOMA issued a global advisory to landlords on best practices, urging them to consider flexible leave policies and provide sanitizing equipment such as alcohol-based hand cleaner and no-touch trash cans.
The first Connecticut resident has tested positive for the new coronavirus and is being treated at a Danbury hospital, Gov. Ned Lamont announced Sunday.
The Wilton resident, between 40 and 50 years old, is believed to have contracted COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, on a recent trip to California, Lamont’s office said in a statement. “Extensive contact tracing” is being done and anyone who has had direct contact with the patient is being told to self-quarantine at home.
With the virus spreading inside the U.S., including the neighboring states of New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, officials had said it was a matter of time before it was detected in Connecticut.
“We have been expecting for some time that a Connecticut resident would become infected with COVID-19, so this should not come as a surprise to anybody,” Lamont said.
Officials said 29 people have had negative tests at the state lab and eight test results are pending.
The case is not related to the COVID-19 case of a Danbury Hospital employee who is a New York state resident, nor that of a community physician from New York state who made rounds at Bridgeport Hospital, Lamont’s office said.
Connecticut’s largest hospitals have been taking steps to plan for what state health officials have predicted could be similar to a bad flu season.
The risk from the virus remain low in Connecticut, Dr. Matthew Cartter, the state epidemiologist, said Friday. Measures such as washing hands and social distancing were adequate, he said, and there was no need to avoid gathering in large numbers.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
