Amazon Says Nearly 20,000 of Its Workers Got COVID-19

Amazon said on Thursday that since the beginning of March, slightly more than 19,800 of its workers have tested positive for Covid-19, reports AFP.

Data on the 1.37 million frontline workers of the e-commerce giant, including those at its Whole Foods Market grocery stores in the United States, showed a lower than expected infection rate, Amazon said.

The release of the figure comes as some logistics center employees have questioned the company's precautions to protect them from the pandemic and its unwillingness to share data about infected colleagues.

According to the Seattle-based firm, Amazon has ramped up research to 50,000 a day across 650 locations.

“Since the beginning of this crisis, we’ve worked hard to keep our employees informed, notifying them of every new case in their building,” Amazon said in a blog post sharing Covid-19 infection rates among its frontline workers.

According to the business, if the infection rate among Amazon and Whole Foods staff were the same as the general US population , the number of cases would have exceeded 33,000.