Nearly 20,000 Amazon and Whole Foods Market front-line employees across the U.S. have tested positive or been presumed positive for COVID-19, Amazon announced Oct. 1.
Amazon made the announcement after examining data on 1.4 million employees who worked at the company any time from March 1 to Sept. 19. The analysis found 19,816 employees have tested positive or been presumed positive for COVID-19. That's 42 percent lower than what Amazon estimated it would have seen if the rate among its employees were the same as it is for the general population, as reported by Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University for the same period, the Seattle-based company said in a blog post.
The blog post comes after attorneys general have urged Amazon to disclose confirmed COVID-19 cases at their facilities, and as at least 10 Amazon warehouse employees who tested positive for COVID-19 have died, CNN Business reported.
Amazon said its safety measures include conducting thousands of tests daily and growing that effort to 50,000 tests daily across 650 sites by November. The company said it is also adding to the total number of tests available.
Read the full blog post here.