Almost 20,000 Amazon workers in US test positive for Covid-19
Source: Guardian
Tech company has faced criticism for keeping warehouses open
Jasper Jolly
Fri 2 Oct 2020 03.45 EDT Last modified on Fri 2 Oct 2020 03.49 EDT
Amazon has revealed that almost 20,000 of its workers in the US have contracted Covid-19 after months of demands for public disclosure from activists.
The US tech company has been one of the biggest corporate winners during the pandemic, with people across the world switching to online shopping during lockdowns. However, Amazon has faced criticism from some labour campaigners who alleged that the company put employees in danger by keeping warehouses open.
In a blogpost, Amazon said that its analysis suggested that the rate of infection among 1.4m workers at Amazon and its Whole Foods subsidiary was 42% lower than the rate expected based on the broader US population.
A state-by-state breakdown of the cases showed that the highest rate of infection of Amazon employees was in Minnesota, where 3.17% of Amazon workers were presumed to have caught Covid-19, double the rate of infection in the broader population. However, the data did not give absolute numbers of infected workers in each state or whether workers in warehouses were more vulnerable.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/oct/02/almost-20000-amazon-workers-in-us-test-positive-for-covid-19
= new reply since forum marked as read
