SHAKOPEE, Minnesota (WCCO / AP) – State health authorities say Amazon’s Shakopee fulfillment center has one of the largest coronavirus outbreaks in a warehouse or distribution plant.
At least 88 of its approximately 1,000 workers have tested positive for the illness caused by the virus. Another 99 workers at other Amazon sites in the Twin Cities have also tested positive since COVID-19 arrived in Minnesota, for a total of 187 cases.
The health department says Amazon employees also tested positive at the Eagan, Maple Grove and Brooklyn Park plants. There were also some Amazon employees who tested positive in Minnesota, but did not disclose the location of their plant. These positive cases did not occur all at once, but began to appear in late April, with most of them in May and some in June thus far.
“I work with 1,000 other people, many of them older, many of them in different conditions that would make them vulnerable, and I am really concerned that Amazon is not doing enough to stop the spread to workers who are vulnerable,” said the employee of Shakopee Amazon. William Stoltz said. “What I really think they should be doing is offering paid vacations to people with conditions that put them at greater risk.”
Kris Ehresmann, director of infectious diseases for the Minnesota Department of Health, said state officials are communicating with employers when groups begin to emerge in the workplace and are providing guidance to mitigate the spread of the disease.
WCCO has contacted Amazon for comment.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All rights reserved. Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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