Up to 150 KPMG staff in Cork work from home over coronavirus fears

About 150 staff at accountancy firm KPMG in Cork are working from home today after a person who works in their building had "close contact" with an individual with coronavirus.

The worker, who is not an employee of the firm, had been in close contact with an individual who is being treated in Cork University Hospital with the virus Covid-19.

The firm said that the landlord of its offices at 85 South Mall in Cork city centre had recommended that staff stay out of the building today to complete a “deep clean” of the building.

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“As a precautionary measure, we have asked all our staff in our Cork office to work from home today,” said a spokesman for the firm.

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“The health and wellbeing of our people and the wider community is our primary concern and we will continue to monitor the situation in conjunction with our landlord and the health authorities.”

A High Court case was adjourned in the Four Courts in Dublin on Monday morning as a party to the case could not access his files as they were in KPMG's offices in Cork, the court was told.

There are 100 staff at Cork University Hospital in self-isolation after the virus was identified in a patient who had been received treatment, putting him in close contact with healthcare workers.

The individual was the first confirmed case of community transition in the country. The man had not recently travelled from northern Italy - the worst outbreak of coronavirus in Europe - and is not known to have been in contact with anyone who had travelled from the affected area.

Meanwhile, in a precautionary measure to deal with a potential fallout from coronavirus, Facebook has temporarily split a number of teams of subcontracted moderators in Dublin who check flagged online information for the social network and moved some of them to other offices in the city.

The company said that it was moving its Accenture- and CPL-contracted moderators “to minimise the potential impact of Covid-19 on our operations.”

The US-based company stressed that there had been no suspected cases among the company’s employees based in Ireland.

“We appreciate this may be disruptive for those involved and we are taking a number of steps to minimise disruption,” said the company’s spokeswoman.

Facebook is making buses available for employees who are part of the temporary move should they require it.

The company has said that it will pay workers who cannot work due to reduced staffing requirements during voluntary working from home, when the company closes a location and when it chooses to send a contract employee home or they are sick.