GameFreak have announced one of their employees have contracted the coronavirus.
The announcement came via the official Game Freak website. You can find the English translation (via Robert Sephazon) below.
“On Wednesday, April 22nd, one of our employees working in our Setagaya, Tokyo office was diagnosed with COVID-19. This employee is currently under close supervision by medical staff within a public health center.
Since the end of January, we have scaled down on face-to-face meetings, restricted overseas travel, recommended less travel, and encouraged staff to wear facemasks, regularly wash their hands and gargle. This is all to minimize possible infection of our staff and the public. Beyond this, all staff have been working from home since Wednesday, April 1st.
The infected employee has not worked in the office since Thursday, April 2nd. Due to this, we have been informed by insurance agents that other staff are unlikely to contract it from this employee. Furthermore, it is not necessary, at this time, to cease our work.
Going forward, we will continue to take swift action with the highest priority on preventing any further spread of infection inside and outside the company. We will work to ensure the safety of both our customers and employees.”
The ongoing coronavirus pandemic (also known as COVID-19 officially, or Chinese Flu to others) has affected many worldwide, from businesses to public gatherings and events. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7].
This includes the postponement of GDC, and the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, along with the cancellation of E3 2020 (including digital events), the physical event for Gamescom 2020, and Comiket 98.
We also reported on staff from Sony Interactive Entertainment and Square Enix contracting the virus. SiliconEra also reports a member of Capcom in Osaka also contracted the virus.
The Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering are mapping the virus’ spread [1, 2]. As of this time of writing, there have been over 2.639 million total confirmed cases worldwide, and over 1.741 million active cases. There have been over 183,000 deaths, however over 715,000 people have made a “total recovery.”
Japan have had over 11,950 cases (10,227 active cases), 299 deaths, and 1,424 recoveries.
