Kickstart: Virus outbreak at Webasto may have spread to Italy

German auto supplier Webasto SE was the first sign of how the coronavirus outbreak could spread as one China-based employee inadvertently brought COVID-19 to Webasto's headquarters operation near Munich during a visit.

But Webasto's response won praise as it quickly closed its Stockdorf, Germany, site, isolated employees and brought the outbreak under control. On March 4, the maker of sunroof systems, including polycarbonate components, said that all of its employees were out of the hospital. That included workers in China as well as Germany.

"The well-being of our employees was and is our top priority. After we learned about the first cases at Webasto, we immediately initiated various measures such as the 14-day closure of our headquarters in Stockdorf. This worked very well and we were able to prevent the virus from spreading further within the company,"  Chairman Holger Engelmann said in a news release.

But now Italian officials are blaming the outbreak at Webasto for the coronavirus cases that have overwhelmed the northern part of the country, leading to the country halting travel to and from the region for millions of people.

The Washington Post reported in a March 8 story that virologists at the Luigi Sacco University Hospital in Milan said its tests show that the strain that hit people there closely resembles the one in Germany.

“That virus probably spread more than recognized,” Massimo Galli, head of infectious diseases at the institute, said in the report.

Sunday was International Women's Day, and on behalf of women, I'd like to say ... Gee thanks. A whole day. And one that was an hour shorter. You shouldn't have.

But seriously, there are a lot of women in the plastics industry who are in leaders now and leaders in the making. For the past few years, Plastics News has been featuring just a few of them in our annual Women Breaking the Mold special report along with a networking forum. (Advance notice, the 2020 forum will be Nov. 17-18 at JW Marriott Cherry Creek in Denver. Keep an eye on this link for registration information.)

And it's early, but soon we'll be putting out a call to nominate Women Breaking the Mold class of 2020 soon. The profiles will run in the Aug. 3 edition of Plastics News. I'm sure you know women in your company who are doing great things. They don't have to be a CEO or be running departments to be notable. Maybe they're organizing a blood drive, or overseeing a move toward automation or advocating for 3D printing.

One of the things I love about Women Breaking the Mold is the opportunity to see and talk to women whose experience runs from work as CEOs to recent college graduates. Start planning now to recognize some of the women in your business. Nobody says we have to celebrate only once a year.

This happened a few months ago, but I just recently came across this announcement by the band Coldplay that it will not do another tour until it can do one on a carbon neutral basis.

"Our next tour will be the best possible version of a tour like that environmentally," frontman Chris Martin told the BBC. "We would be disappointed if it's not carbon neutral. The hardest thing is the flying side of things. But, for example, our dream is to have a show with no single-use plastic, to have it largely solar-powered. We've done a lot of big tours at this point. How do we turn it around so it's not so much taking as giving?"

As Rolling Stone notes, Coldplay isn't alone. Billie Eilish, who just picked up a handful of Grammy awards, said that her tour, which started this month, "will be 'as green as possible,' with a ban on plastic straws and an 'Eco-Village' with climate education resources set up at every venue."