Lyft is the lastest company to send people home amid worries about the spread of COVID-19. The lift-sharing company is joining a long list of companies who have publicly sent people home or encouraged employees to work remotely to avoid contact with the virus. 

The coronavirus has already had plenty of impact on the tech industry, with major high-profile conferences and launches being cancelled or postponed to a later date. Facebook's F8 conference, Mobile World Congress, Google I/O and more have all taken a hit. 

Things are a bit different at Lyft though, as one of the company's employees in San Francisco has apparently come into contact with someone else who was exposed to the virus and has been sent home. The company explained why to TechCrunch:

"We are basing every step of our response process on CDC guidance, and out of an abundance of caution are encouraging our San Francisco headquarters employees to work from home for the remainder of this week..."

Several other large companies have publically issues statements along the same lines - letting employees work from home to avoid the danger of getting ill. 

It seems that COVID-19 is having a bigger and bigger impact on our daily lives. It's thought that the spread of the coronavirus might lead to delays in new smartphone launches and it has even recently postponed the launch of the latest Bond film.  

The good news is you can do your part to help with research into the virus with folding@home.