Credit to tech’s pandemic leadership

America’s technology companies could have done more to keep Americans informed about the coronavirus and to help people and businesses that have struggled. But they have also been decisive trendsetters in keeping their workers and the rest of us safer from the virus.

Last year, some high-profile tech companies were relatively early to close their corporate offices as coronavirus outbreaks started in the United States, and they continued to pay many hourly workers who couldn’t do their jobs remotely. Those actions from companies such as Microsoft, Salesforce, Facebook, Google, Apple and Twitter probably helped save lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and perhaps beyond.

Now many of the same tech companies — along with schools and universities, health care institutions and some government employers in the United States — have started to announce vaccine mandates for staff, the resumption of requirements to wear masks, delayed reopenings of offices or on-site workplace vaccinations to help slow the latest wave of infections.