E-commerce giant Amazon has released official figures on the number of coronavirus cases among its workforce, revealing that almost 20,000 U.S. employees have contracted the virus since March.
Gizmodo reports that e-commerce giant Amazon has released official data on coronavirus cases among its workforce which states that almost 20,000 U.S. employees have contracted the virus since March. Amazon stated in a blog post on Thursday that between March 1 and September 19, it counted 19,816 confirmed and presumed cases of coronavirus which accounts for around 1.44 percent of Amazon’s 1.37 million Amazon and Whole Foods Market front-line employees across the U.S.
These figures do not include Amazon’s network of third-party delivery drivers that handle last-mile deliveries, which accounts for around 85,000 employees across the U.S., Canada, Spain, Germany, and the UK. This means that the estimate of just under 20,000 infected employees is likely a conservative one.
Amazon has faced pressure from lawmakers and labor groups to release data on coronavirus infections among its workforce following several reports of unsafe working conditions. The company implemented regular temperature checks and began offering workers basic PPE following pressure from both the Senate and House of Representatives.
Amazon faced criticism in March after it reopened its Queens facility within a day of a worker there testing positive for the virus. Hundreds of workers at Amazon and Whole Foods later coordinated “sick out” demonstrations while calling for safer working conditions and protesting the company’s firing of two employees that organized similar strikes.
Breitbart News recently reported that a study from Reveal News appears to show that Amazon has downplayed the number of injuries at its warehouses, specifically failing to acknowledge the increase in injury numbers at its robotic warehouses. An Amazon whistleblower reportedly gave injury data from Amazon’s U.S. warehouses to Reveal, the Center of Investigative Journalism’s news outlet.
The data purports to document the number of injuries per week across 150 Amazon warehouses in the United States from 2016 to 2019. Reveal News states that Amazon defines a “serious injury” as one that requires time off work or changes to the employee’s job. The data shows that Amazon recorded 14,000 serious injuries across 150 U.S. warehouses in 2019. This is 33 percent higher than the company’s injury rate in 2016 and nearly twice the industry standard.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com