Facebook has announced that a contractor working in its Seattle headquarters has tested positive for coronavirus, as the disease continues to spread through Washington State.
The employee was last in the social media giant’s Stadium East office in Seattle on February 21 – around 12 miles from the nursing home which is connected to at least six coronavirus deaths in the US.
The company alerted the rest of the workforce Wednesday night and announced that the office will be closed next week until at least March 9.
All employees are also being encouraged to work from home for the remainder of the month.
Facebook has announced that a contractor working in its Seattle headquarters has tested positive for the coronavirus
The employee was last in the social media giant’s Stadium East office (above) in Seattle on February 21. The company alerted the rest of the workforce Wednesday night and announced that the office will be closed next week
In total, there have been 11 coronavirus deaths on US soil with all but one of them occurring in Washington state. At least six of them are linked to the Life Care Center in Kirkland (Pictured is a patient being taken from the nursing home on Tuesday)
Spokesperson Tracy Clayton said in a statement: ‘A contractor based in our Stadium East office has been diagnosed with the COVID-19.
‘We’ve notified our employees and are following the advice of public health officials to prioritize everyone’s health and safety.’
This is the first known case within the company.
The news comes one day after Amazon announced that an employee at its nearby offices at the South Lake Union complex in Seattle had tested positive for the disease.
The individual, who has not been named, had gone home sick from work on February 25, the company announced late Tuesday.
An Amazon spokeperson told DailyMail.com: ‘We’re supporting the affected employee who is in quarantine.’
An internal email sent to Amazon employees in Seattle and nearby Bellvue said that any employees who had been ‘in close contact’ with the infected worker had been notified separately.
The email instructed employees experiencing symptoms to stay at home and seek medical attention.
‘Your health is our top priority and we are continuing with enhanced deep cleaning and sanitization in the office,’ the message said.
Amazon has more than 50,000 employees in Seattle.
The outbreak nursing home, the Life Care Center of Kirkland, where at least six residents have died from coronavirus is around 12 miles from the tech hub home to Amazon’s and Facebook’s headquarters
An Amazon employee at the company’s Seattle headquarters (above) tested positive for coronavirus, the company announced Tuesday
The latest case at Facebook comes as Washington State has fast become the US epicenter for the deadly disease and has declared a state of emergency over the crisis.
Eleven people in the US have died from the disease, with ten of the victims being in Washington State.
In King County alone, which includes Seattle and is home to over 2.2 million people, nine people have died.
At least six of these were patients at Life Care Center, a nursing home in the suburb of Kirkland that is now the subject of a federal investigation.
The nursing home is around 12 miles from the tech hub home to Amazon’s and Facebook’s headquarters.
Washington health officials are advising businesses to let employees work from home to help curb the outbreak, which has ramped up over the last week.
Medics wait to enter the nursing facility which is now under federal investigation
The Life Care nursing home has fast become a hotbed for the virus, after the county first confirmed two cases on Saturday in a resident and an employee at the home.
Around 27 of the 108 residents and 25 of the 180 staff then began showing some symptoms of the virus.
On Sunday, four new cases were confirmed, including a man who died, becoming the second confirmed death on US soil.
The man in his 70s with underlying health conditions died at the EvergreenHealth hospital in Kirkland on Saturday.
This is the same hospital where a man in his 50s died on Friday night – the US’s first coronavirus-related death.
He has so far not been connected with the facility, although the hospital is based just two miles away.
Cases and deaths in connection have Life Care Center continued to mount, with at least six of the US’ fatalities from the disease being patients at the center, including two who died last week and were only confirmed posthumously.
One of those residents, a male in his 50s, died last Wednesday after being taken to a Seattle hospital.
A woman in her 80s, who was a resident of Life Care but was never hospitalized, died at her family home that same day.
At least 27 firefighters and paramedics who responded to calls at the infected nursing home in the lead-up to the outbreak were tested for the virus on Tuesday amid fears they too could have contracted the disease.
The nursing home outbreak is also the source of the first confirmed case in North Carolina, it was revealed on Tuesday.
A man in Wake County tested positive for the virus after visiting the care facility in Washington and then flying back home.
In a statement on March 4, Ellie Basham, executive director of Life Care Center, said staff and residents were facing a ‘challenging situation’.
She said, despite the manifestation of the disease at the site, the center had ‘not been provided testing kits, so we are relying on our local hospitals, the local and state health departments and the CDC to confirm cases’.
The care home is now the subject of a federal investigation after it emerged that it has come under fire in the past for failing to control the spread of viruses.
Last April, the state fined Life Care $67,000 over infection-control deficiencies following two flu outbreaks that affected 17 patients and staff.
Officials have not yet determined how the senior living facility became the US hotspot for most of the nation’s deadly cases.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is sending inspectors along with experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate what happened and determine whether the nursing home followed guidelines for preventing infections.
The number of confirmed cases in the US is escalating rapidly, with more than 150 people across at least 15 states having tested positive for the disease.
Healthcare workers transport a patient out of Life Care Center on February 29. The care home is now the subject of a federal investigation after it emerged that it has come under fire in the past for failing to control the spread of viruses
A man is seen spraying disinfectant through a bus in King County on Wednesday, as health officials advise businesses to let employees work from home to help curb the outbreak