Ciena closes Ottawa offices after employee tests positive for COVID-19

Technology company Ciena closed its offices in KanataWednesday after an employee tested positive for the coronavirus.

Nicole Anderson, vice-president for corporate communications withCiena, said the employee travelled overseas for a vacation and is now confirmed to have COVID-19.

Ciena's Ottawa campuswill remain closed until next week, she said.

Only one person in the city has so far tested positive for the virus,Ottawa Public Health (OPH) said late Wednesday afternoon.

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That person, a man in his 40s, had recently returned from a trip to Austria and is in self-isolation.

Anderson confirmed theCiena employee fits that description. He travelled to Austria with two colleagues who work at the company's Ottawa office, she said.

All of Ciena's roughly 1,700 employees in Ottawa are working remotely until March 17, a date roughly two weeks after the employee was last inthe office.

"We made this decision out of an abundance of caution and in the interest of protecting the health and well-being of our employees and their families," Anderson said in an email to CBC.

In the meantime, the company is performing a "thorough cleaning and sanitizing" of its entire Ottawa campus, she said.

Employees 'a little bit nervous'

Aziz Khan, a senior IT analyst with Ciena, said employees began leaving the building after lunchWednesday to work from home.

"Some of the employees are a little bit nervous," he said from his car as he leftwork. "I'm a little bitnervous as well. I have two kids at home and so I'm worried about them more than me."

Khan said he did not know the sick employee.

OPH said it's still trying to determine whom the man with COVID-19 might have come intocontact with.

Ottawa's medical officer of health, Dr. Vera Etches, noted Wednesday the man did not have symptoms on his flight home, and therefore posed little risk to other passengers on the plane.

OPH does not believe the man took public transit in Ottawa before going into self-isolation, Etches said.

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Another technology company in Ottawa, Shopify, announced Wednesday it's asking all its employees around the world to start workingremotely as a precautionary measure starting March 16.

"Working from home will help play a part in reducing the spread of the virus, and hopefully lessen its potentially huge burden on the healthcare system," said a tweet from Shopify.