Amazon has offered help to newly appointed US President Joe Biden to meet vaccination goals. The new US administration plans in the first 100 days of office, 100 million US Providing citizens with vaccine. Now the online retailer emphasizes the role of 800. 000 Amazon employees as ” systemic workforce “who ensure that customers can receive products and services at home during the crisis. Most of the employees are unable to work from home, which is why they should be vaccinated “at the earliest appropriate time” according to Amazon.

Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon’s consumer division, stated in the letter Arstechnica received that it was ready to support the government in matters of distribution, IT and communication. Amazon has also reached an agreement with a medical service provider and is able to vaccinate employees in its own facilities as soon as the required vaccine doses are available.

Sought-after vaccines Clark had already contacted the US disease control agency CDC in December to work towards a speedy vaccination of the Amazon workforce. There were similar efforts by the driving service providers Uber and Lyft. Both companies are pushing for drivers to be vaccinated in a timely manner, according to the Wall Street Journal. In addition, the companies are in talks with those responsible from the healthcare sector about the possibility of offering free trips to vaccination appointments for low-income people. Uber is also planning, together with vaccine manufacturer Moderna, to disseminate information on the safety of vaccinations via the ride-sharing app.

Occupational safety under criticism Amazon is one of the winners of the Corona crisis and hired a record number of new employees last year. Hundreds of thousands of people work in the US parcel and logistics centers. The effectiveness of Amazon’s precautions to protect employees from corona infections was recently discussed. The service union ver.di reported outbreaks in the shipping centers in Garbsen, Bayreuth and Borgstedt during the last Christmas business. In the USA they were infected up to 19. September around 19. 000 Employees with Covid – 19, announced Amazon in early October 2020 in a blog post.

(ndi)