An Amazon employee at one of the mega-retailer's Oklahoma City fulfillment centers was diagnosed with coronavirus, according to a voice memo shared with employees in the area and obtained by Business Insider.
On Monday evening, the workers in Amazon's Oklahoma City region received a voicemail from the general manager, Vikrant Ahuja, in which he said that an associate at OKC1, the name of that fulfillment center, is receiving medical care for a coronavirus diagnosis.
The infected associate last was at the OKC1 fulfillment center on March 18, Ahuja said. He added that Amazon is working with the local health department to determine what the effect may be on other employees.
Amazon did not return Business Insider's multiple requests for comment. A representative from the Oklahoma City-County Health Department told Business Insider, for privacy reasons, that they do not "confirm nor deny specific details of cases of COVID-19, with the exception of notifying other persons who might be exposed to a specific confirmed case."
Thank you for your inquiry. To protect private health information, we do not confirm nor deny specific details of cases of COVID-19, with the exception of notifying other persons who might be exposed to a specific confirmed case.
This is the second-known Amazon fulfillment worker to be diagnosed. Amazon confirmed the first case — an associate in Queens, New York — on March 18 to The Atlantic.
Recent studies show just how damaging coronavirus can be. About 0.1% of people who get the seasonal flu die, but the coronavirus' death rate is now at about 3.4%. Even those who recover from coronavirus may have 20% to 30% less lung capacity, causing survivors to gasp for breath while walking, doctors in Hong Kong have found.
Amid the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, which has infected 41,000 people in the US and killed more than 500, Amazon has seen online orders balloon as more Americans depend on the company for bottled water, cleaning supplies, and other essentials. Many are staying at home under government order or advisement, so they're relying on e-commerce more than ever.
In order to keep goods moving, Amazon is hiring an extra 100,000 warehouse workers and boosting pay by $2 an hour.
The Seattle-based retail giant is also suspending shipments of all nonessential products to its warehouses as a way to deal with the increased workloads. Amazon will focus on shipping out medical supplies, household staples, and other high-demand products to its warehouses until April 5.
But the consequences of Amazon warehouse workers having the coronavirus, which can take up to two weeks to exhibit symptoms, could have a frightening chain effect on the millions of Americans who buy from Amazon yearly.
The coronavirus could jump from a warehouse associate to a driver, who then may interact with a customer, or those employees may infect each other while at work, according to Dale Rogers, who is a professor of supply-chain management at Arizona State University. Rogers told The Atlantic's Olga Khazan that these interactions "could be catastrophic."
