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Amazon closed a warehouse in northern New Jersey until December 26, after seeing an increase in asymptomatic coronavirus cases.
Employees at the Robbinsville Township, New Jersey facility, known as PNE5, were informed Saturday that the site will be temporarily closed, according to a notification obtained by CNBC.
Amazon employees will be paid for any changes they will miss while the facility is closed, Amazon spokeswoman Lisa Levandowski told CNBC in a statement.
“Through our internal COVID-19 testing program, we detected an increase in the number of positive asymptomatic cases at the PNE5 unit in northern New Jersey and proactively shut down the site by December 26, with plenty of caution,” Levandowski said. “That’s exactly why we built the program – to identify asymptomatic cases and to make sure we can take quick action to prevent the spread.”
Levandowski did not immediately answer questions about the total number of PNE5 cases or whether the building will be subject to additional cleaning while closed.
Amazon in October revealed that nearly 20,000 front-line employees hired Covid-19 between March 1 and September 19. At the time, the company said the infection rate among employees was 42% lower than expected, compared to the general population rate. in the United States
Amazon has previously closed other facilities for short periods of time after registering new cases of coronavirus. In March, Amazon temporarily closed a delivery station in Queens, New York, after a worker tested positive for coronavirus. That month, it also closed a unit in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, after several workers there tested positive.
Most Amazon warehouses remained open during the pandemic, as they were considered essential facilities, along with grocery stores, pharmacies and banks, among other businesses.
The company has previously stated that it has made great efforts to keep the facilities clean and to ensure that employees comply with the necessary safety measures, such as wearing a mask, using hand sanitizer, practicing social distance and other measures. Amazon also launched test sites on a significant portion of its stores and in October said it performs thousands of tests a day.
However, workers in US warehouses and deliveries have called on Amazon to do more to protect front-line employees, including restoring temporary wage increases and paying paid sick leave.
Amazon is among several companies fighting for their workers to gain priority access to the coronavirus vaccine. Last week, Dave Clark, who runs Amazon’s retail operations, wrote to a panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demanding that warehouse employees, Whole Foods workers and data center employees “receive the Covid-19 vaccine at the earliest.” early appropriate time ”.
On Sunday, the CDC voted that people 75 years of age and older and key frontline workers should be next in line for the coronavirus vaccine. Firefighters, police officers, teachers, grocery workers, public transport and postal workers are among the key workers included in the level, known as phase 1b. Other key workers are expected to be included in the third wave of recipients.