Amazon has shut down its New Jersey facility as the Covid-19 case numbers amongst the company’s workers in the state continue to increase.
On Sunday, Amazon.com Inc. sent a statement to Reuters saying that it would be shutting down one of its New Jersey-based warehouses until Dec. 26, after seeing a spread of asymptomatic positive cases amongst workers. “Through our in-house COVID-19 testing program, we detected an increase in the number of asymptomatic positive cases at our PNE5 facility in northern New Jersey and have proactively closed the site until December 26th out of an abundance of caution,” an Amazon spokeswoman said in the statement.
The company said that its operations will continue and that consumers can still expect to receive their deliveries. Reuters reports that the company did not reveal the number of cases but mentioned that employees will be paid for the shifts that they cannot cover due to the facility’s shutdown.
Back in October, Amazon said more than 19,000 of its frontline workers contracted the coronavirus this year, and labor advocates are criticizing the company over its decision to keep warehouses open during the pandemic. Amazon workers, elected officials, and unions have been speaking out against Amazon, saying the company has put workers’ health at risk. Amazon says it plans to expand Covid-19 testing to 50,000 U.S. employees per day, Reuters reports.
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