In a letter sent to Biden on Wednesday, Amazon (AMZN) CEO Dave Clark wrote that the company was “ready to help” with the vaccination of 100 million Americans in the first 100 days, as Biden promised to do.
As part of the offering, Clark emphasized that Amazon has more than 800,000 U.S. employees – most of whom work in key roles in Amazon fulfillment centers, AWS data centers and Whole Foods Market stores – and these workers need the Covid 19 vaccine at the earliest suitable time. He added that Amazon has an agreement with a licensed third-party occupational health care provider to administer vaccines at its facilities.
This is not the first time Amazon has advocated for early access to the vaccine for its essential workers. In December, Clark wrote a letter to the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee on access to the vaccine at the earliest appropriate time. Others made similar requests, including Uber for its drivers, and the National Retail Federation, which advocated for the retail industry.
The push comes because the safety of workers has become an area of intense scrutiny during the pandemic for the company, whose business has risen, even as the broader economy is caught in a recession caused by pandemic. In October, Amazon said that more than 19,000 of its U.S. employees in the front line at Amazon and Whole Foods had been tested positive or considered positive for the coronavirus, which for the first time sheds light on how the workforce after months by Covid- 19 has been affected. of both internal and external pressure for more transparency.
In Clark’s letter, he suggests that the company could help the administration wider, although the details are unclear.
He wrote that Amazon is “willing to leverage our operations, information technology and communication capabilities and expertise to help your administration’s vaccination efforts. Our scale enables us to make a significant impact immediately in the fight against Covid-19, and we stand ready to assist you in this endeavor. ‘
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for further information from CNN Business.
