Amazon Restricts China Business Travel Due To Coronavirus

'Out of an abundance of caution, we are restricting business travel to and from China until further notice and encouraging our employees to follow the health and safety guidelines provided by international health agencies such as the CDC and WHO,' an Amazon spokesperson says.

Amazon has restricted business travel to and from China in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that started in Wuhan, China, but has been identified in a growing number of international locations, including the United States.

Amazon, the owner of Amazon Web Services, is encouraging employees to follow U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines for the deadly respiratory illness, which already has killed at least 171 people in China, where thousands are infected.

“We place tremendous value and focus on the well-being and safety of our employees,” an Amazon spokesperson said. “Out of an abundance of caution, we are restricting business travel to and from China until further notice and encouraging our employees to follow the health and safety guidelines provided by international health agencies such as the CDC and WHO.”

Google, which operates Google Cloud, yesterday also said it has suspended operations at its offices in China and Taiwan and temporarily blocked travel to the region.

The Amazon and AWS restriction applies to nonessential travel to China -- the world’s second largest economy after the United States -- unless it's approved for a “business-critical decision,” the company said.

Amazon also is recommending employees who are or will be traveling back from one of the affected Chinese provinces to work from home for a 14-day period and, in the event that they experience symptoms, seek medical attention prior to returning to the office.

The CDC today confirmed the first case of human-to-human transmission of coronavirus in the United States. A Chicago woman who was infected in Wuhan and returned to the United States has infected her spouse, according to the CDC. Public health officials are said to be monitoring another 21 patients in Illinois for possible infections, CNBC reported.

The disease – first reported Dec. 31, 2019 – has infected a confirmed 7,818 people in 19 countries as of Thursday morning, according to the WHO. More than 7,735 cases have been confirmed in China, with another 12,167 suspected.

Amazon has an office in Wuhan, according to its website. Its corporate head office is in Beijing. It also has Chinese offices in Changchun, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Jinan, Kunshan, Nanning, Shanghai, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Tianjin, Xiamen and Zhongwei.

AWS China employees work in the heart of Beijing, in a campus-style environment, according to the AWS website. AWS has two cloud computing regions in China run by local service providers: a Beijing region operated by local service partner Beijing Sinnet Technology Co. Ltd. and a Ningxia region operated by Ningxia Western Cloud Data Technology Co. Ltd.