Coronavirus: Chennai offices screening employees and visitors

India Inc. is not only making employees aware of ways to check transmission of coronavirus, but most have allowed employees to work from home for some time. In Chennai, offices have begun screening staff as well as visitors entering their premises. Till now, one individual has tested positive for the virus, and is being treated in quarantine, at the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Chennai.

Thermal screening machines have been set up in many offices, while others are diligently monitoring the body temperatures of their employees.

Several information technology (IT) and IT-enabled services (ITES) companies in Chennai, especially those situated on Old Mahabalipuram Road and certain IT parks are seriously screening people entering their premises. Posters and flyers are being used to inform and educate people about the virus and hygienic practices to keep it at bay.

Organisations, such as Hyundai Motor India and Rolls Royce, have been using thermal sensors to screen employees. Their staff members have been asked to avoid shaking hands, and use cards to punch their attendance instead of the biometric system.

Meanwhile, an employee of Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt, and one at KKR & Co., London have tested positive for the COVID-19. Deutsche Bank is closely monitoring all the employees who came in contact with the affected employee. It is sanitising the premises, and also asking many staff members to work from home. On the other hand, KKR has closed its two offices in London for sanitisation purposes. The employees have been asked to work from home until further notice. Those who came in contact with the infected employee have been told to self-quarantine for 14 days.

One of the workers at the Everett factory of Boeing, near Seattle, US, has also tested positive for COVID-19. The infected worker’s co-workers, who have been working with him closely, have been asked to self-quarantine themselves. In Toronto, an employee of the Royal Bank of Canada has also contracted the virus.

Globally, the numbers of those infected are increasing by the day.