Tech giant Apple has reportedly opened its retail stores in China once again after shutting them down last month due to the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.
CNET reports that Silicon Valley tech giant Apple has reopened all of its stores in China after shutting them down last month following the outbreak of Wuhan coronavirus. The company has since been gradually reopening them and the final stores resumed normal business on Friday.
The closure of the stores factored into Apple’s announcement last month that the coronavirus would have an impact on its quarterly revenue. Apple CEO Tim Cook stated at the time that he was confident that China was getting the outbreak under control.
A number of tech firms are being affected, Breitbart News recently reported that e-commerce platform Shopify recently instructed its 5,000 employees across 11 different countries to work from home, following in the footsteps of Facebook, Google, Twitter, and multiple other tech firms that have sent employees home as the Wuhan coronavirus spreads. A source familiar with Shopify told Business Insider that the firm is providing employees with a stipend to pay for any office equipment they may need to work remotely.
Apple closed its stores in Italy as the country began dealing with the virus and restricted all employee travel. Cook has also given most of the company’s global workforce permission to work from home. Amazon instructed its employees in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle area to work from home last week, multiple other Silicon Valley tech firms took similar measures including Facebook, Google, and Twitter. Amazon’s decision came shortly after one of its workers in its Seattle offices tested positive for the coronavirus. Amazon has also stated that it won’t penalize warehouse workers for taking unpaid time off during the month of March.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com