Amazon warehouses are getting hit with coronavirus cases
CNNCNN Business — Amazon warehouses are facing a growing tide of coronavirus cases with at least 11facilities hit so far, according to Amazon and local media reports. One person who works in Amazon’s Staten Island, New York, fulfillment center tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the online retail giant told CNN Business late Tuesday. One worker at the Staten Island facility told CNN Business Wednesday morning that despite confirming the positive case to the media, Amazon had not notified workers at the site through email, text message, call or update in the company’s employee app — pointing to a lack of internal transparency. An Amazon spokesperson told CNN Business, “We communicated to the employees verbally in socially distanced small group meetings.” The spokesperson has not yet responded to a follow-up question about how the company had communicated with employees who’d yet to come in for their next shift. Workers previously told CNN Business that Amazon’s social distancing policies are unrealistic in warehouses, where tight conditions in locker areas force employees to “walk sideways” to pass one another.