Apple postpones employee return-to-office until October amid huge surge in Indian Delta variant - even as financial giants like Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo vow to keep on schedule for staff return
- It is a departure from the Silicon Valley giant's initial plans announced last month for workers to return to its offices in early September
- It comes as the Indian delta variant has sent Covid-19 positivity rates surging across the country
- It would be the first of the major US tech companies to postpone its return-to-office plans
- Facebook still plans to return to full office capacity in October, but with remote work options
- Google also still plans to have its workers return to the office in September
- Other major companies like top investment bank Morgan Stanley are staying the course and expects its New York City workers to return to office in September
- Yet others such as JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs have already called the majority of their workforce back to the office
- The delta variant now accounts for 83% of new Covid-19 cases as the country has recorded a 224% increase in infections
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Apple is now saying its full workforce will return to the company's offices across the country in October by the earliest as more contagious variants of the coronavirus spread across the country, even as the country's financial giants have vowed to stay the course.
Originally the Silicon Valley giant had set early September as its deadline for employees to return to in-person work, with Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook announcing to workers last month that they would be spending at least three days a week in the office.
Cook had cited declining infection rates and the widespread availability of vaccines, but the spread of the highly contagious Indian delta variant, however, appears to have prompted a reconsideration of those plans, Bloomberg reported.
The decision would make the Cupertino, California-based Apple the first of the major US tech companies to delay return-to-office plans as driven by the delta variant, Covid-19 cases have skyrocketed nationwide, prompting a reconsideration of mask wearing guidelines in California.
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Other Silicon Valley giants have also been testing out remote work configurations, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announcing last year that he expected much of its workforce to remain working remotely even after the pandemic.
The company plans to reopen its offices to full capacity by October, but is offering workers the option to work remotely for up to half of the year.
Google, on the other hand, has yet to release firm remote work plans except that it expects its workers to return to in-person work three days a week in September.
Other major firms such as top investment bank Morgan Stanley have been adamant about staying the course, with CEO James Gorman telling investors late last month that he expects all of his New York City workers to return to the office in September.
Wells Fargo, too has called for a full return to office after Labor Day, according to a July 16 memo, Barron's reported.
'We believe our success depends on our employees becoming increasingly collaborative and innovative, and that we all benefit from seeing our colleagues on a regular basis,' Chief Operating Officer Scott Powell wrote in the memo.
And yet others have already called the majority of their workforce back to the office, with Goldman Sachs workers having returned on June 14, and JPMorgan on July 6.
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Facing a 700% positivity rate increase over the past month, LA County on Sunday became the first in the nation to reinstate indoor mask wearing mandates, even amongst the vaccinated.
Additionally, on Friday officials in eight Bay Area counties announced new indoor mask wearing guidelines, 'out of an abundance of caution,' they said, to protect their unvaccinated populations.
In testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee last Wednesday, Dr Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said the variant accounts for 83 percent of COVID-19 cases.
The figure is a considerable increase from the 50 percent of infections that were linked to the Delta variant two weeks ago.
It comes as the U.S. recorded 52,111 new cases on Monday with a seven-day rolling average of 34,682, which is a 224 percent increase from the 10,678 average recorded three weeks ago.
Nearly every state - aside from Montana and Iowa - and the District of Columbia have seen infections rise in the last week, according to a DailyMail.com analysis of Johns Hopkins data.
However, Covid-19 deaths haven't shot dramatically higher in the wake of the rising number of cases tied to the Delta variant, also known as B.1.617.2, and are currently averaging around 277 fatalities per day.
Health officials say this is because people now are protected by vaccines, though in states that have less vaccine uptake - such as Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Missouri - hospitals are starting to fill up.
Deaths, too, should tick higher, but not to the rates seen during the deadly winter surge because of vaccines.
Meanwhile, as cases increase, daily COVID-19 vaccinations continue to decline, with the seven-day rolling average falling below 500,000 per day from a high of 3.5 million in April.
Apple had initially been resistant to remote work, and in June employees criticized the September return-to-office deadline as too early, with staff penning a letter to Cook saying they felt their concerns about in-person work had gone unheard.
Some Apple employees had been working in its offices on certain days throughout the pandemic, Bloomberg also reported.
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