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Amazon on Thursday released high-level data on COVID-19 infection rates among its warehouse workers and in stores, saying nearly 20,000 “front-line” employees contracted COVID-19 between March 1 and mid-March. September.
Of the 1.37 million people who worked at Amazon’s distribution facilities or Whole Foods stores during that period, 19,816 – or about 1.44 percent – have had COVID-19, Amazon said. The company published the number in the context of a corporate blog post that boasts of the success of its mitigation measures.
“If the rate among Amazon and Whole Foods Market employees were the same as the general population, we estimate that we would have seen 33,952 cases among our workforce,” Amazon wrote. “In reality, 19,816 employees tested positive or were presumed positive for COVID-19, 42% less than the expected number.” The calculations do not include Prime delivery drivers, most of whom are not technically Amazon employees.
Amazon shared a state-by-state breakdown (PDF) showing where infections are per 1,000 employees compared to its projections and compared to state-level data. For most states, Amazon’s case count is actually lower than the statewide count. That said, the company is clearly having some trouble with the hot spots: In both West Virginia and Minnesota, Amazon’s infection rate is higher than its projections and the community rate. The rate for Amazon workers is also higher than the state rate in New Hampshire.
In previous Bloomberg reports, a warehouse outside of Minneapolis was found to have an infection rate more than four times the rate in the surrounding community, likely contributing to Amazon’s 3.17 percent case rate in Minnesota. However, that the media brought that number to light, highlights the biggest problem with Amazon’s handling of COVID-19: its lack of transparency.
Opacity
Amazon’s release of the data follows an in-depth report NBC News released on Wednesday investigating the spread of COVID-19 in Amazon warehouses. NBC found that Amazon’s “lack of transparency” made it incredibly difficult for both workers and public health officials to obtain useful information about the spread of the novel coronavirus within Amazon facilities.
The first known case of COVID-19 at an Amazon facility was identified in March, when a warehouse employee in Queens, New York, became infected with the disease. During the spring, workers complained that Amazon was not doing enough to protect employees inside distribution centers.
An employee, Chris Smalls, was fired from his job at the Staten Island warehouse in March, shortly after he helped organize a strike to protest Amazon’s handling of the coronavirus. The company leadership quickly tried to smear Smalls as “not smart or articulate” and tried to paint him as the only face of the workers’ opposition. Amazon also laid off three tech workers and suspended a fourth after those employees, based at the company’s headquarters in Seattle, raised concerns about the company’s treatment of its warehouse workers.
Employees still frustrated by the lack of clear information have tried volunteer data collection efforts, NBC said this week, as workers only receive vague information from Amazon. “The texts we receive distinguish between whether a case or several cases were found that day, but that’s as specific as possible. You don’t know if they were on your shift or in the same section as you,” a logistics center the employee told NBC. . “To my knowledge, no one in my facility was told that they were close enough to a positive case to quarantine it, and it is a fairly small facility, so it seems impossible that no one has come into contact with one of the people who were sick. ” added.
Amazon told NBC that notifications are kept vague for privacy reasons, adding that it uses camera surveillance systems to track employee movements for contact tracing purposes. The company also said in its blog post that its goal is to reach 50,000 tests performed per day in November, which would work to test around 3.6 percent of its frontline workforce every day.
Athena, a broad coalition of racial justice and worker rights groups, called on Amazon and public health officials to do better.
“Since March, workers and their communities have been demanding these figures from Amazon. Workers faced retaliation, including the risk of losing their job, just for defending their own health and the health of their neighbors,” said Athena’s director, Dania Rajendra. “Public officials must immediately initiate investigations into Amazon and demand that the company report data on COVID-19 cases from now on, publicly, regularly and truthfully. It couldn’t be clearer that Amazon cares only about their own results and that legislators must force them to, at a minimum, tell the truth.
