Public health could be under some serious threat as Amazon workers get hit by the deadly pandemic.
Online giant Amazon has disclosed that around 20,000 of its workers have tested COVID-19 positive. That’s 1.44 per cent of entire workforce at Amazon.
Amazon, which has today become a part of every American’s life, revealed the shocking numbers yesterday (2 October) in a blog post.
The e-commerce stalwart has been facing lot of pressure lately from several workers’ rights organisations, including labour rights activists, to make the numbers (of affected workers) public.
Amazon has said that despite the numbers being high, the infection rate is 42 per cent lower than what was expected based on infection rates across America.
The online retailer has said that if infection rates had matched the US average, 33,952 from a total of 1.37 million of its workers would have got infected.
Instead, the number of workers infected was 19,816 – recorded between 1 March and 19 September 2020.
Meanwhile, Amazon has said that by next month it will conduct 50,000 tests daily across 650 sites while investing huge money in its own testing programme.
Amazon has been receiving lot of criticism in recent months for allowing the pandemic to spread rapidly in its sites, which has now affected several thousands of its workers.
