Company Update Regarding COVID-19 | Corning

"As a society, we have all been confronted with the challenges of a rapidly evolving global pandemic.

This is a fight that demands a compassionate and committed response to stay healthy, mitigate new workplace challenges, and support our customers and communities.

We are wrestling with unprecedented challenges in all the geographies that we serve. Each region of the world is taking different actions to confront this human health crisis. Our global teams are working tirelessly through the complexities presented every day in each of our regions, including, at times, taking extraordinary measures to respond to specific employee hardships.

Corning has 169 years of resilience in the face of adversity, and we can thank our employees, customers, and communities for playing major parts in our past and future success."

— Wendell P. Weeks, chairman, chief executive officer, and president

Local, state, and national governments across the globe are responding to the threat of COVID-19 by, among other mandates, requiring offices and other facilities to shut down, imposing shelter-in-place, or requiring remote work activities. In these orders, officials have designated certain businesses as essential, critical, or life-sustaining, and therefore exempt from such restrictions. Our employees have been impacted by these orders in a variety of ways.

• Most of Corning’s manufacturing facilities in locations impacted by government directives have been deemed essential, critical, or life sustaining because they manufacture products that are necessary to support essential infrastructure, industries, or the health, safety, and welfare of the public.
• We have directed most Corning employees at our global non-manufacturing facilities to work remotely for the time being.
• Unfortunately, not all roles allow for remote work, and therefore government mandates have resulted in select involuntary layoffs. We are taking important actions to ease the financial burden for impacted employees during this challenging period.
• Similarly, for those employees with technical responsibilities who are not able to work-from-home and who must continue working in one of our Corning facilities classified as essential by government order, we recognize that imposes different kinds of challenges. We will provide each employee who falls into this category with additional compensation over the next month, in addition to normal compensation and benefits. 

As governments make additional recommendations or update precautionary measures in real time, we will respond, all the while maintaining our commitment to workplace safety and good corporate citizenship.

Our protocols and technology for remote work have been activated to meet the evolving needs of our employees during this time, including support for their wellbeing. Our stakeholders can be assured that Corning is closely adhering to COVID-19 guidance from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which we track at all times.

Directed by our chief health officer, Corning has mounted a significant, multifaceted response to COVID-19. This includes “Responsible Corning,” a communications campaign directed at our employees, providing current information about personal health precautions, travel protocols, and regional restrictions. Some of the guidelines already implemented include:

• Suspension of international business travel and limited domestic travel within the U.S.
• Suspension of attendance at conferences and other large events
• Enhanced cleaning procedures implemented at all locations
• New measures for site visitations and entry screenings

Corning has taken a multi-pronged approach to providing support to our employees and customers affected by the outbreak. A wide range of efforts are underway to deliver technological expertise and accelerated manufacturing capacity, including:

• Corning’s Life Sciences (CLS) business has donated thousands of 384-well microplates, which are used by laboratories to screen thousands of drug compounds, to expedite the discovery of drugs that might be effective in treating COVID-19. The shipments were expedited to ensure supplies were delivered within three days. CLS has also provided PCR products such as tubes and media, swabs, and vials for diagnostic testing of, and research into, related drugs and vaccines.
• Corning’s Pharmaceutical Technologies (CPT) business has donated products to help relieve supply constraints related to COVID-19. In addition, CPT is working to ensure available tubing and vial supply to support our pharmaceutical customers as they develop and manufacture COVID-19 vaccines and other critical drugs.
• Our Advanced-Flow™ Reactor teams in China and France designed, built, shipped, and implemented production-scale manufacturing within days of a China-based customer’s request, instead of the weeks or months it would typically take. This has enabled efficient production of the customer’s environmental air disinfectant, a peracetic acid (PAA) solution, to help reduce spread of COVID-19 in China.
• Nippon Paint China and Corning donated 5 million RMB worth of Nippon Paint Antivirus Paint (specially produced for frontline hospital use, not available in the market) to four COVID-19 designated hospitals in Hubei, China. In this product, Nippon Paint adopted Corning Guardiant™ Antimicrobial Particles, one of our emerging technologies, to help frontline health workers by offering an additional layer of protection against the coronavirus.

Corning continues to evaluate how some of our other technologies and capabilities could help those affected by the outbreak.

We are working at every level to execute existing divisional and local business continuity plans to ensure that our operations are being maintained effectively and safely to meet our customers’ needs, minimize disruption, and deliver on what we promise. We are applying playbooks, protocols, and guidelines that we have used in China and South Korea at the beginning of the crisis. We were able to successfully protect our people and ensure the continuity of our businesses in the Asia-Pacific region – giving us confidence in our approach as we continue to address fast-changing circumstances across the globe, including the workplace-related orders implemented in the various states within the U.S.

Corning continues to supply critical products around the world at this time. We are monitoring our raw material inventory levels and taking additional measures to mitigate interruption.

Corning’s global pandemic preparedness plan, which has been put to the test in a variety of contingency planning scenarios, is currently in effect to ensure effective responsiveness to the impact of COVID-19 for a wide variety of contingencies.

We remain committed to successfully operating our businesses to serve the needs of our customers. Our business continuity plans account for a range of options we can deploy if we need to make additional changes to help minimize the impact of the crisis on our operations, and appropriately care for all stakeholders, including our employees, customers, and communities.