Google asks all North American employees to work from home

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Google's parent company, Alphabet, has spelled out a new message for its North American employees: "Work from home."

The recommendation comes in the wake of growing coronavirus concerns. Google is one of the first companies to encourage workers across an entire continent to operate off-site.

The tech giant also recently canceled its biggest annual developer conference due to the virus.  Alphabet following in similar footsteps of other tech giants like Amazon and Facebook; both of those companies called for employees in Seattle to work from home.

So far, there have been more than 250 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Washington state.