One of Kojima Productions' employees has tested positive for COVID-19, or coronavirus, leading to the studio officially shutting its office down for a temporary period of time.
The studio, run by famous developer Hideo Kojima and responsible for 2019's Death Stranding, confirmed the diagnosis in a press release and listed out the precautions being taken as a result. The employee in question hadn't been in the office for several days already, but naturally, the rest of the staff is still responding to the news.
The results of a PCR test confirmed that one Kojima Productions employee was indeed ill with coronavirus. That employee hasn't been in the office since March 20, but the studio is nevertheless temporarily shutting its doors to avoid its staff coming into further contact with the disease; as a result, staff will now be working remotely from home.
“We are working closely with public health authorities and they have informed us that since this employee was not in the office at the time of symptoms onset, all other Kojima Productions employees are not considered ‘close contacts,’ meaning that it is not mandatory to close the office," the studio's press release read. “However, we at Kojima Productions have independently decided to enact the following precautions to safeguard the health and well-being of all our employees as well as the broader community.”
Precautions taken by the developer include sanitizing the entire workspace and supervision for the health conditions of all staff, in addition to the new remote work policy. This certainly isn't the first studio to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and it won't be the last, but at the very least, it sounds like the rest of the Kojima Productions staff were only subjected to minimal exposure of the virus.
Source: Kojima Productions