SiriusXM suggests remote work amid cononavirus fears for its traveling employees
The satellite radio company has asked employees who recently traveled through Japan to work from home
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Higher-ups at SiriusXM are taking extra precautions to ensure their staff won’t contract the coronavirus after some employees had a layover at a Japanese airport, FOX Business has learned.
This news comes in after an earlier report from Page Six said the satellite radio company had quarantined a number of top execs after a meeting with Sally McMaho, senior vice president of channel management, on Feb. 26.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SIRI | SIRIUS XM HOLDINGS INC. | 26.50 | -0.66 | -2.43% |
A SiriusXM spokesperson told FOX Business that reports of a quarantine were exaggerated.
SiriusXM in-Dash Radio
“At a meeting yesterday, we realized a handful of team members had stopped over for a few hours in an airport in Japan. That is all. There is no evidence of the coronavirus among our employees,” an internal message sent by the SiriusXM human resources team reads, which FOX Business obtained through the company’s spokesperson. “However, per our Company policy and out of an abundance of caution, we asked everyone at that meeting to work from home for the next 14 days. Many folks at that meeting were appreciative that we were being ultra-cautious.”
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The coronavirus, which has the potential to be deadly, has spread from its point of origin in China’s Wuhan region and has caused outbreaks throughout Asia and other parts of the world.
The quarantined ship Diamond Princess is pictured through barbed wire at Yokohama port in Yokohama, near Tokyo Monday, Feb. 17, 2020. (Mayuko Isobe/Kyodo News via AP)
China has had 78,498 confirmed cases and 2,744 total deaths related to the illness, according to John Hopkin’s live map tracker. Japan has the third-highest number of confirmed cases when factoring in the country’s reported 214 infections with the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship’s 705 reported infections in Yokohama – bringing the total number up to 919 infected and eight dead.
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The U.S. currently has 60 confirmed cases of coronavirus with six recovered thus far.