Pledge of Action Against COVID-19

FOR UPSTATE NY FOUNDERS & CEOs

We, the leaders of technology companies with headquarters or offices in Upstate New York, are stepping up efforts to prevent the spread of COVID-19 here in our communities and beyond by taking the following decisive actions in the interest of protecting the most vulnerable members of our community:

• First, we are strongly encouraging the majority of our workers to work from home as soon as possible, leaving behind the minimum possible in-office presence.
• Second, we are restricting work travel by our employees, both domestically and internationally. We are also strongly advising our employees to be thoughtful about all personal travel, particularly where they would be congregating in larger groups.
• Third, we are moving all clients, visitors, and interviews to remote only meetings and not currently welcoming onsite visitors.
• Fourth, wherever possible we are strongly encouraging our vendors, service providers and partner businesses to take similar precautions.
• Fifth, we are each consulting with our teams to find ways of supporting our local healthcare workers by helping to purchase critical medical resources, such as additional tests and protective equipment, and supporting the work of local nonprofit organizations that are helping at-risk communities who will be severely impacted by this pandemic.
• Finally​, we are calling on the community to support the government’s effort in restricting public gatherings and other non essential activity as well as following guidance on keeping social distance and stepped up measures for sanitizing personal hygiene and contact surfaces.

Why are we taking these unprecedented steps?

The spread of COVID-19 is past the point of containment. Without swift action, we may soon witness the failure of our healthcare system’s capacity to deal with the virus’s complications. Our healthcare system is not built to handle enormous loads of critically ill people all at once. Therefore, we urgently need to flatten the curve of disease transmission to prevent unnecessary deaths. There are not enough health care providers to care for all the sick, nor enough full ventilators. We are already seeing this play out with tragic consequences in Italy, where the mortality rate is shockingly high, as their healthcare system has struggled to keep pace with the sudden crushing load of hospitalized patients, leading to otherwise preventable deaths.

These actions alone will not be enough, and we cannot wait for our government agencies and elected officials to mandate these restrictions. Every hour counts. We therefore call on others across Upstate — and in other communities across the country — to follow our lead and implement these procedures, effective immediately.