Amazon to stop on-site COVID-19 testing in U.S. warehouses this month

By Nikita Chaurasia  | Date: 2021-07-21

Amazon to stop on-site COVID-19 testing in U.S. warehouses this month

Amazon is reportedly planning to discontinue on-site Coronavirus testing for its warehouse employees in the United States. The retail giant confirmed slowing down the testing by 30th July and will only resume after receiving new guidelines change from national or local public health officials.

Notably, Amazon had established a huge testing operation in October 2020 to handle over 50,000 COVID-19 testings per day across 650 sites by November. Fully vaccinated employees were no longer needed to wear masks unless mandated by laws. 

Though the e-commerce powerhouse did not deem it mandatory for the warehouse workers to be vaccinated, the company is encouraging them by rewarding bonuses of up to USD 80 for vaccination.

Amazon its staff on 19th July that free Coronavirus testing is widely available, despite employees could easily access other options like public testing sites and health providers. In addition, Amazon had started selling an at-home COVID-19 test at USD 39.99 that was available for the consumers since June.

Although nearly 48% of the U.S. populace is fully vaccinated, COVID-19 cases in the country are escalating rapidly among the unvaccinated people due to the highly contagious Delta variant and dearth of vaccinations in various states.

Some Amazon workers had also left early to protest its handling of the pandemic across all its sites. If sources are to be believed, Amazon did not inform the staff when their coworkers were tested positive for the COVID-19.

However, In October last year, Amazon revealed that about 1.4% of its workforce, that is nearly 20,000 staff were infected with the virus during that time.

Over 17,000 COVID-19 cases have been recorded in the United States in just two weeks. In this context, experts claimed that this was majorly due to the Delta variant which was first identified in India and has severely affected the United Kingdom as well as other countries.

Source Credits –

https://www.theverge.com/2021/7/19/22584386/amazon-end-onsite-covid-19-testing-us-warehouses

 

About Author

Nikita Chaurasia     aeresearch.net

Nikita Chaurasia

An accomplished professional in the field of content development, playing with words comes naturally to Nikita Chaurasia. After completing her post-graduate MBA degree in Advertising and PR, Nikita worked across numerous content-driven verticals, undertaking diverse r...

Read More >>

More News By Nikita Chaurasia

Swiftly achieves Unicorn status with $100M Series C led by BRV Capital

Swiftly achieves Unicorn status with $100M Series C led by BRV Capital

By Nikita Chaurasia

Swiftly Systems has reportedly achieved unicorn status, securing in funding through a Series C round. The prominent BRV Capital Management led this funding initiative. According to the earlier reports, Swiftly was adopted by hundreds of consumer b...

Rainforest nations unify to demand cash for climate & biodiversity preservation

Rainforest nations unify to demand cash for climate & biodiversity preservation

By Nikita Chaurasia

As per the reports, twelve nations with rainforests united to establish a collective initiative aiming to address climate change and safeguard biodiversity at summit held in Brazil. The declaration, titled "United for Our Forests," emerged ...

AI Chatbot, Llama 2, unveiled by Meta for commercial use via Microsoft

AI Chatbot, Llama 2, unveiled by Meta for commercial use via Microsoft

By Nikita Chaurasia

Meta Platforms has recently introduced Llama 2, an artificial intelligence large language model, for commercial use in collaboration with major cloud providers like Microsoft. Instead of charging for access or usage, Meta aims to share the model with...

Moderna signs agreement to explore mRNA medicines in China

Moderna signs agreement to explore mRNA medicines in China

By Nikita Chaurasia

Moderna Inc, a leading vaccine manufacturer, reportedly announced on Wednesday that it has entered into a memorandum of understanding (MoU) and a land collaboration agreement aimed at exploring opportunities for researching, developing, and producing...

Nike and Epic Games collaborate to launch Airphoria NFT in Fortnite

Nike and Epic Games collaborate to launch Airphoria NFT in Fortnite

By Nikita Chaurasia

The American footwear design & manufacturing company, Nike and Epic Games, the creators of the popular online game Fortnite, have joined forces in an exciting new collaboration. The partnership aims to bring about a groundbreaking change in the d...