Amazon offers to help Biden administration roll out vaccine

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Amazon has offered up its delivery empire to the newly inaugurated Biden administration to help distribute the vaccine across the US.

Amazon’s incoming chief executive of retail Dave Clark wrote to President Joe Biden yesterday stating that it “stands ready to assist you in reaching your goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans in the first 100 days of your administration”.

The letter, first reported by Reuters, Clark said Amazon is prepared to “leverage our operations, information technology and communications expertise to assist your administration’s vaccination efforts,” adding that its vast scale allowed Amazon to “make a meaningful impact immediately”.

Clark also reiterated requests made to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month that Amazon’s 800,000 US frontline workers should receive their vaccines at the “earliest appropriate time”.

READ MORE: Amazon a “threat to public health” as over 19,000 workers contract COVID-19

He added that the company already has a contract in place with an occupational health provider to administer vaccines across its estate and it was “prepared to move quickly once vaccines are available”.

“We are proud of the role our employees have played to help customers stay safe and received important products and services at home, which is critical for people with underlying medical conditions and those susceptible to complications from Covid-19,” the letter continued.

Amazon, the US second largest employer, has come under continued scrutiny for the measures it has put in place to protect its workers from the virus, with reports from October suggesting 20,000 employees had caught the virus to date.

However, progressive lockdowns have driven record numbers of people to Amazon’s website, with many depending on its platform for essential goods.

This has forced the retailer to strike a balance between worker safety and customer fulfilment while investing hundreds of millions of its profits back into testing.

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