Amazon warehouses are getting hit with coronavirus cases
Amazon warehouses are getting hit with coronavirus cases
© Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images Orders move down a conveyor belt at the 855,000-square-foot Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City, on February 5, 2019. – Inside a huge warehouse on Staten Island thousands of robots are busy distributing thousands of items sold by the giant of online sales, Amazon. (Photo by Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images)
Amazon warehouses are facing a growing tide of coronavirus cases with at least 10 facilities hit so far, according to Amazon and local media reports.
One person who works in Amazon’s Staten Island, New York, fulfillment center tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the online retail giant told CNN Business late Tuesday. The person, who was last at work physically on March 11, is in quarantine and recovering, Amazon said.
That case marks the second to affect Amazon warehouses in New York. It comes a week after the first reported case at any US Amazon facility, in Queens, NY. The company also confirmed a case at a facility in Joliet, Illinois, on Wednesday afternoon. Other positive cases have been reported at Amazon facilities in Moreno Valley, Calif.; Jacksonville, Fla.; Shepherdsville, Ky.; Brownstown, Mich.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Katy, Texas; and Wallingford, Conn.
Amazon has temporarily closed some sites, such as the Queens location, but has largely refrained from mass closures. The company told CNN that it is taking “extreme measures to ensure the safety of employees at our site[s].”
That includes regularly sanitizing door handles, elevator buttons, lockers and touch screens, Amazon said, as well as staggering shifts and spreading out chairs in break rooms.
The spread of the virus within Amazon’s massive logistics operation may only add to the anxiety among workers who previously told CNN Business they felt Amazon should be doing more to protect the hundreds of thousands in its warehouse facilities across the US.
