Almost 4,000 employees initially received self-isolation.
Thousands of Amazon employees in the UK have been told to isolate themselves after COVID-19 tests initially returned positive – but it turned out to be a false alarm.
A spokesman for the UK Department of Health and Social Care told ABC News that on February 13, about 3,853 Amazon employees were reported to have tested positive, only that evening the department would say they had gave negative results.
“Working closely with Amazon, NHS Test and Trace quickly notified affected employees to inform them that they should not isolate themselves,” the spokesman said in a statement.
Amazon did not specify where the affected employees worked in the UK or what their roles were.
The e-commerce giant has an on-the-job testing program, launched last fall, that uses PCR testing. The company has reported positive cases to Public Health England on a daily basis, and the agency manages transfers of this data to the National Health Service Test and Trace.
“We have communicated with our partners and partners to support them with appropriate action, as instructed by the NHS,” Amazon said in a statement.
Britain is battling its own variant of coronavirus, which health experts have said is more contagious and is spreading to other parts of the world. However, health data from the British government indicate that COVID-19 cases and deaths have decreased.
86,321 new cases were reported in the country in the last seven days, a decrease of almost 28% compared to the previous week, according to the data. 4,345 deaths were reported in the last week, down 25% from the previous week, the British government said.
As of Monday night, 15,576,107 residents had received the first vaccine, according to health data.