Hours after former President Donald Trump’s presidency drew to a close, Amazon offered President Joe Biden assistance in distributing coronavirus vaccines.
“As you begin your work leading the country out of the COVID-19 crisis, Amazon stands ready to assist you in reaching your goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans in the first 100 days of your administration,” Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon’s consumer business, wrote in a Wednesday letter to the Biden administration, which was obtained by NBC News.
“We are prepared to leverage our operations, IT, & communications capabilities and expertise to assist your administration’s vaccination efforts,” Clark continued. “Our scale allows us to make a meaningful impact immediately in the fight against COVID-19, and we stand ready to assist you in this effort.”
“We are prepared to move quickly once vaccines are available,” he added. “We are committed to assisting your administration’s vaccination efforts as we work together to protect our employees and continue to provide essential services during the pandemic.”
Clark has requested employees at Amazon fulfillment centers and Whole Foods grocery stores “who cannot work from home,” receive the vaccine as soon as possible.
Read Clark’s full letter here.
The offer comes asthe United States will soon begin the process of approving additional coronavirus vaccines.
Appearing on NBC News’ Meet the Press, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the nation is “weeks away, not months away” from fully evaluating vaccine candidates from Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca as Biden plans to ramp up distribution after criticizing the Trump administration’s vaccine rollout. He went on to say:
I would imagine within a period of a week or so, or at the most, a couple of weeks, they’re going to be getting their data together and showing it to the [Food and Drug Administration]. They’re going to have to get their data and safety monitoring board to look at it to see if it is appropriate to start, you know, essentially putting the package together to get an emergency use authorization. But we’re weeks away, not months away, for sure.
The U.S. has administered 13.7 million shots since inoculations began on Dec. 14 with healthcare workers for an average of 847,387 doses per day, according to Bloomberg.
The UPI contributed to this report.
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