On October 1, Amazon released a complete data to inform publicly about how their workforce is doing during the coronavirus pandemic. As per reports, the Amazon COVID cases were counted as 19,816 a week back. All of them are front-line workers for the company in the US.
In total, they have a workforce of 1.37 million in the front line, and the reports are of 1.44% of that. The announcement comes after labor groups, regulators, and politicians asked the company to disclose coronavirus infection numbers among their workers.
The data suggests of almost 20,000 employees getting infected between the timeline of March 1 to September 19. These include Whole Foods Market employees as well.
Amazon COVID cases reported publicly after external pressures
Evidently, a company might not want to reveal the number of increasing coronavirus cases and face restrictions because of that. However, Amazon has constantly been getting pressure from regulators, politicians, and labor groups to give accurate numbers. Being on the front-line like health care workers, it is evident that delivery personnel are definitely at high risk.
During the pandemic’s early months, Amazon warehouse workers had raised concerns that the company wasn’t doing enough for protection. Many of them starting falling sick and asked for facilities and shutdowns. Moreover, there was a lack of data from Amazon. The warehouse workers made a crowdsourced database with a list of people infected; they compiled it based on new cases registered for facilities across the country.
The company initially didn’t respond to the number of cases and said that doing so would mislead the public. On October 1, the company shared a blog post stating the number of people infected. Further, they went onto say that if more companies reveal similar data, the numbers would be higher.
With more data, the company can maintain the progress and provide best practices across industries and businesses. Among the Amazon COVID cases, they have eight confirmed deaths. However, the numbers for this wasn’t updated last Thursday.
The total number of cases shared by Amazon doesn’t include third-party delivery people. These are the last-mile delivery workers. The numbers are not definite to share how many drivers have contracts with the third-party delivery system. However, the company announced that they have more than 85,000 people working for them across Canada, Spain, Germany, the UK, and the US.
What Amazon has to say regarding COVID spread among employees?
The company said that the number of infections among their employees is 42% less than expected. This is based on the population rate of the US and the number of people working for them. They also said that if the infection rate were in line, the company would have had more than 33,952 infections by October 1.
Amazon said that the company had maintained a lower transmission rate in its warehouses compared to surrounding communities. However, there are definitely disputes in numbers as the infections in their Minnesota warehouse is more than community levels.
The company updated the progress related to coronavirus testing for front-line workers. They said that they are going through thousands of tests every day. But they intend to make ti 50,000 tests per day in more than 650 facilities by the end of November.
As per reports, the company aims to go through bulk testing for front-line workers twice a month. The employees will have to take nasal swab tests for detection. Supposedly, they will invest in Q2 profit worth $4 billion for coronavirus response and spend more than $1 billion for tests throughout the year.
The company is all set to hire scientists, researchers, procurement specialists, software engineers, and program managers. The team will help its company test employees faster. Moreover, Amazon has built a lab for developing the testing capacity of coronavirus. Teams will be present in Kentucky, Sunnyvale, Hebron, and California.
Walmart Coronavirus cases
The biggest employer in the US is Walmart, with more than 1.5 million employees. In April, they had less than 1% of infections among their staff. The company didn’t release the actual number or give an updated percentage. They also didn’t respond immediately when asked to send the numbers.