Amazon Says Over 19,000 Employees Have Caught COVID-19

In a recent blog post, Amazon has revealed that 19,816 employees have tested positive for COVID-19. They explain, though, that total is only 1.44 percent of their total employees.

They wrote, "We have done a thorough analysis of data on all 1,372,000 Amazon and Whole Foods Market front-line employees across the U.S. employed at any time from March 1 to September 19, 2020. We compared COVID-19 case rates to the general population, as reported by Johns Hopkins University for the same period, accounting for geography and the age composition of our employees to make the data as accurate as possible."

"Based on this analysis, if the rate among Amazon and Whole Foods Market employees were the same as it is for the general population rate, we estimate that we would have seen 33,952 cases among our workforce. In reality, 19,816 employees have tested positive or been presumed positive for COVID-19; 42% lower than the expected number."

They add that they will eventually conduct thousands of tests daily, eventually doing 50,000 tests a day across all 650 of their sites by November.

The United Food & Commercial Workers president, Marc Perrone, made a statement about Amazon's information. He said, "Amazon's confession that nearly 20,000 of its workers have been infected by COVID-19 is the most damning evidence we have seen that corporate America has completely failed to protect our country’s frontline workers in this pandemic."

He adds that UFCW is calling for immediate action by regulators and a full Congressional investigation. "Jeff Bezos has repeatedly demonstrated that profits will always come before the safety of the company’s employees in Amazon warehouses and Whole Foods grocery stores. "

"This titanic safety failure demands the highest level of scrutiny. The lives of America’s essential workers are on the line and we will not rest until Amazon and Jeff Bezos are held accountable."