Amazon to Biden: Prioritize our workers for the vaccine

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In a letter to Biden Wednesday, Amazon (AMZN) Executive Dave Clark wrote that the company is “ready to help” vaccinate 100 million Americans in the first 100 days, as Biden has promised to do.

As part of that offering, Clark emphasized that Amazon has more than 800,000 US-based employees – most of whom work in key roles at Amazon fulfillment centers, AWS data centers, and Whole Foods Market stores – and that these employees are ‘the Covid’. 19 vaccine at the earliest appropriate time. He added that Amazon has entered into an agreement with a licensed third-party occupational health care provider to administer vaccines at its facilities.

It’s not the first time Amazon has advocated early access to the vaccine for its vital workers. In December, Clark wrote to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about access to the vaccine “at the earliest possible time.” Others made similar requests, including Uber for its drivers and the National Retail Federation, which advocated for retail.
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The push comes as worker safety has become an area of ​​intense scrutiny during the pandemic for the company, whose business has soared even as the wider economy is trapped in a pandemic-induced recession. In October, Amazon said more than 19,000 of its US frontline employees at Amazon and Whole Foods have tested positive or found positive for the coronavirus, shedding light for the first time on how its workforce has been affected by Covid-19 after months. . of both internal and external pressure for greater transparency.

In Clark’s letter, he suggested the company could help the administration more broadly, although the details are unclear.

He wrote that Amazon is “willing to use our business, information technology and communications capabilities and expertise to support your administration’s vaccination efforts. Thanks to our scale, we can immediately have a meaningful impact in the fight against Covid-19, and we are ready to assist you in this endeavor. “

Amazon did not immediately respond to CNN Business’s request for more information.

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