Coronavirus Outbreak: Amazon Starts Making Its Own Covid-19 Testing Lab For Employees

Amazon until now has made over 150 process changes at sites around the world to ensure the health and safety of its teams.

More than 50 Amazon-owned facilities have confirmed COVID-10 cases in the US. (File Photo/ Getty)

Seattle: Amazon has started building a lab that will enable it to test employees for the COVID-19 virus, the latest step the online retailer is taking to try to protect its warehouse workers and delivery drivers who are getting essential products to customers sheltering at home. Amazon, like other employers around the world, lots of people are still coming to work, is pushing to update its processes and procedures to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus within its facilities. Recently this week it began screening the temperature of each person arriving for work and distributing face masks. The founder and CEO Jeff Bezos was seen sporting a mask, had his temperature checked as he entered a fulfillment center in a video the company shared Wednesday night on social media. Today’s visits by our founder and CEO @JeffBezos to say thank you to Amazon fulfillment center and Whole Foods employees. We’re all incredibly proud of the thousands of our colleagues working on the front lines to get critical goods to people everywhere during this crisis.

Today's visits by our founder and CEO @JeffBezos to say thank you to Amazon fulfillment center and @WholeFoods employees. We're all incredibly proud of the thousands of our colleagues working on the front lines to get critical goods to people everywhere during this crisis. pic.twitter.com/wxth2yURON

— Amazon (@amazon) April 9, 2020

According to the company, a team of Amazonians with a variety of skills from research scientists and program managers to procurement specialists and software engineers have moved from their normal day jobs onto a dedicated team to work on this initiative. "We have begun assembling the equipment we need to build our first lab and hope to start testing small numbers of our front line employees soon," Amazon said in a statement late Thursday. The e-commerce giant admitted it is not sure how far it will get in the relevant time frame. It further said, "We think it''s worth trying, and we stand ready to share anything we learn with others". Amazon until now has made over 150 process changes at sites around the world to ensure the health and safety of its teams. A next step might be regular testing of all employees, including those showing no symptoms. Regular testing on a global scale across all industries would both help keep people safe and help get the economy back up and running, said the company. More than 50 Amazon-owned facilities have confirmed COVID-10 cases in the US, several with multiple cases of the deadly coronavirus. Throughout the Coronavirus pandemic, Amazon has principally remained open. To meet growing demand, Amazon has hired additional 80,000 workers. The e-commerce giant has been continuously slammed by legislators, unions, and employees about health safety across its workforce at warehouses amid the coronavirus pandemic to which Amazon replied that it is taking major steps to protect the workers.