As Coronavirus fears deepens in Japan, Cryptocurrency exchange operators, are taking steps to allow their workers stay at home.
Media outlet Crypto Watch reports that GMO Internet, the company that operates the GMO Coin exchange, has begun a remote working policy, allowing some 4,000 employees to stay away from offices and complete their work duties from home.
Another cypto-firm, Yahoo Japan, a subsidiary of SoftBank-backed Z holdings and the operators of the TaoTao crypto-exchange platform have informed its 6,500 workers to use staggered work hours to help them avoid time when the commute is heavy. This is to help avoid rush hours and keep them away from the virus.
The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in Japan has recently updated its Q & A to indicate that a suspected infection may be “if you have a cold symptom or a fever of 37.5 degrees or more for 4 days or more, if you have strong drooling (malaise) or breathlessness (dyspnea)”. The Ministry further explained that two known routes of transmission were droplet transmission and contact transmission.
As a countermeasure for non-infected persons, hand washing with soap or alcohol disinfectant is effective. “Cough etiquette” is recommended, such as wearing a mask if you have coughing or sneezing symptoms. He explained that mask supply has recently become difficult, but more than 100 million wafers are being supplied each week.
These firms have also relaxed the limit on the number of days its employees can work from home in order to protect them from contracting the virus. Now, employees may decide to work remotely on more days than before just to ensure they can avoid the commute which may cause them to contract the virus. Because Cryptocurrency exchanges do not require physical presence, this has been easily implemented.
With 75,282 confirmed cases, and 2,012 reported deaths worldwide, Japan has been one of the countries most affected by the virus. Coming in 3rd place with 74 confirmed cases apart from China (74,188) and Singapore (81). There’s also one other virus-related death. According to the John Hopkins data, 13 patients in the nation have so far recovered from the disease.
