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(Adds company and industry details, background on virus spread)
By Imani Moise
NEW YORK, March 10 (Reuters) - Barclays Plc has
told employees that a member of its trading staff in its
Manhattan office has tested positive for the coronavirus, the
company said on Tuesday.
The company is operating business as usual, Barclays
spokesman Mark Lane said in a statement.
The person, who worked out of the 745 7th Ave office, had
been in self-quarantine since March 3. The company believes the
colleague contracted the virus away from the office late last
month.
The European bank has advised employees who worked in the
vicinity or had meetings with the individual since that time to
self-quarantine for 14 days.
The bank has deep-cleaned the workspace and surrounding area
on the second-floor trading area, Lane said in the statement.
"We are working closely with the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention and other local authorities," he said. "We
continue to monitor the situation closely and will take further
action as appropriate."
The coronavirus outbreak, which originated in China last
year and causes the sometimes deadly respiratory illness
COVID-19, has killed more than 4,000 globally and been reported
in more than 110 countries.
Banks have been fine-tuning contingency plans in recent
weeks to deal with the quickly spreading coronavirus.
Institutions like JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of
America Corp have been separating members of their
trading staffs and asking bankers to check their remote working
capabilities to make sure they can keep operations running as
authorities encourage social distancing as a preventive measure.
Trading floors are particularly crucial because the need for
high-speed technology and tight oversight makes trading remotely
more complicated than other banking functions.
Financial services firms in the United States began
reporting their first confirmed cases of the virus this week.
Wells Fargo & Co said it had a confirmed case in San
Francisco on Monday and Blackrock Inc reported its first
confirmed case in New York City on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Imani Moise and Elizabeth Dilts Marshall in New
York
Editing by Bill Berkrot and Matthew Lewis)
