In an attempt to stop the virus from spreading, businesses are closing all over the world. The activity of some will continue, as the nature of their work allows for things to be handled remotely, while others will have to find some way of staying afloat during this crisis and care for the well being of their employees at the same time.In what is the first major response to the crisis from the American auto industry, both Ford and GM announced earlier on Friday that they are instructing most of their employees to perform their task remotely as of Monday, March 16.“Starting Monday, we are instructing much of our global workforce – except those in business-critical roles that cannot be done away from Ford facilities – to work remotely until further notice,” Ford says in a statement.“We are asking all GM employees and contract workers to work remotely, beginning Monday, March 16. This policy applies globally, apart from our team in China, which has existing protocols in place,” GM adds in a statement attributed to CEO Mary Barra.Both carmakers say these measures will apply only to the people whose work nature allows it, leaving the industry hopeful that full plant closures can be avoided.The coronavirus outbreak that started in China at the end of last year has spread incredibly fast to more than 130 countries. At time time of this writing, there are some 140,000 infections officially reported, and over 5,000 people are dead, about 20 percent of them in Italy alone. In the U.S. there are 1,830 reported infections and 41 deaths.