Citigroup and J.P. Morgan reported three additional cases of confirmed coronavirus infections in their New York-based offices, bringing Wall Street’s total count to five.
At J.P. Morgan, two employees were hit in the bank’s Manhattan-based headquarters and have been receiving treatment at home since last week, according to a «Reuters» report. The two are reportedly well and healthy while the bank has asked other staff who have come in close contact to work from home for two weeks as a precautionary measure.
And at Citi, one employee was diagnosed and tested positive for the virus while on personal travel to Singapore. According to the bank, the employee was asymptomatic and did not visit any Citi based facilities during which traveling to Singapore. Other employees that worked on the same floor as the infected victim were given the option to work from home.
Outpacing Singapore
In addition, the New York-based offices of Morgan Stanley, Barclays and BlackRock reported one employee each with confirmed infections. In just one week, New York outpaced Singapore’s three confirmed cases – two at DBS and one at OCBC – alongside other cases nationwide such as Wells Fargo in San Francisco.
Interestingly, there have not been any reported cases in Hong Kong’s banking sector despite bordering mainland China, home to the Wuhan-based epicenter of the outbreak. Though there have been scares and cases of staff coming in contact with infected victims elsewhere, the sector has yet to register an infected case as the city continues to rein in on new cases.
In fact, the city’s combat against the outbreak has been lauded by «Financial Times» (behind paywall) and attributed to community response. Indeed, both the private sector and the general public were quick to adopt strict health measures to help offset other factors such as unpopular policy decisions to keep borders freely open and advice to the public against hygiene-related practices or the city’s dense population which houses millions of traditionally constant visitors to the mainland.
