WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — All International Monetary Fund employees will work from home on Friday, the fund said yesterday, to test systems in case the spreading coronavirus epidemic makes working remotely a necessity.

The World Bank, too, has been testing remote work procedures on a smaller scale, a spokesman told AFP.

Last week, the IMF and World Bank announced that their spring meetings in April would become a virtual event amid the spread of COVID-19, which has sickened 110,564 people in 100 countries and killed 3,862.

As more governments and companies are encouraging work from home to contain the virus, the IMF said in a statement it would, for the first time, conduct a “fund-wide remote work exercise”, as part of its “crisis preparedness efforts and in preparation for the virtual spring meetings in April”.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/business-observer/imf-to-test-working-from-home-in-case-virus-strikes_189208