Joe Biden faced a number of pressing challenges in his first days as the new US president, but managing the ongoing deployment of the Covid-19 vaccine is certainly one that will be given the highest priority. The process has so far not gone smoothly, and states have vaccinated only a fraction of the expected population.
Amazon says it can help.
In a letter to the president acquired by NBC News, Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon’s global retail business, offered the company assistance with the vaccination effort. While the proposal may be sincere, it is not entirely selfless.
As Clark noted, Amazon has more than 800,000 employees in the U.S., and most are essential workers who must be at Amazon’s full warehouses, data centers, and Whole Foods stores to do their jobs. In his letter, he suggested that these workers receive the Covid-19 vaccine “at the earliest appropriate time” and said it would help with the effort.
It would not be the worst start to get more Americans vaccinated, and Amazon obviously has a clear interest in ensuring the workforce stays healthy. Early in the pandemic, the company sometimes struggled to prevent its workers from getting sick, with some even running outings because they felt Amazon had not done enough to keep them safe. The issues have contributed to the stumbling block in Amazon’s famously efficient operations. In October, the company revealed that nearly 19,816 of its workers had tested positive or were considered positive for Covid-19.
Clark also said that Amazon could leverage its “operations, information technology, and communications capabilities and expertise” in the broader effort to vaccinate Americans. Some supply chain experts, such as Nada Sanders, a professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University, suggested that Biden enlist Amazon’s logistics expertise to oversee the vaccine’s distribution because of the company’s ability to manage inventory. and deliver quickly. Amazon, meanwhile, is unlikely to mind going on the good side of the Biden administration as it continues to fend off competition investigations by federal agencies.
It is unclear how effective Amazon can be in speeding up the mass vaccination of Americans. Some of the factors that have delayed the process include staffing issues at local hospitals and technological issues that make it difficult for the federal government and states to share information effectively. Amazon can also be great for getting toothpaste or groceries from a warehouse to a customer, but to move vaccines, you need ultra-low temperature freezers.
But if Biden’s government decides they want Amazon’s help, the company says it’s ready.