San Francisco – Employees of up to eleven different Amazon warehouses in the United States have tested positive for COVID-19, at a time when the e-commerce company is experiencing an unprecedented increase in activity, with home deliveries skyrocketing.
The firm in Seattle, Washington state, has not confirmed all the cases, which have been revealed as they became known through the local media, but it has admitted positive for coronavirus in workers at four of its centers.
The cases recognized by Amazon are two in separate warehouses in the state of New York and two others in Illinois and New Jersey, while the local press has reported cases also in facilities in Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, California, Oklahoma, Michigan and Texas. .
In all these centers, employees have been quarantined and in some very specific cases, the facilities have been closed, but the vast majority of Amazon stores are not only still open, but also the activity of these days is being frenetic and they have even increased the number of workers.
With much of the United States under confinement orders and most closed retail businesses, e-commerce, of which Amazon continues to be hegemonic, is experiencing an increase in activity even higher than that of the Christmas campaigns (traditionally, the moment of greatest sales).
However, several Internet users have resorted to social networks to express doubts about the hygiene of the packages they receive at home and if they could be transmitting elements of the virus, while some Amazon employees have openly criticized those that, in their opinion These are insufficient measures by the company to guarantee its safety in the midst of the pandemic.
In mid-March, the firm led by Jeff Bezos announced that it was hiring 100,000 workers in the United States to respond to the sharp rise in demand and that it would also increase warehouse and distribution staff salaries.
In the United States, Amazon pays a minimum of $ 15 an hour to its workers, a figure that in COVID-19 times has increased to $ 17 an hour.
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