Amazon Memo Reveals that COVID-19 Was Prevalent in a Warehouse in This City

According to an internal memo from Amazon that was obtained by CNBC, coronavirus infection rates at an Amazon warehouse in Minnesota were far higher than the surrounding community.

The memo contradicts what several Amazon executives, including senior vice president of global operations Dace Clark has said about the infect rates. The executives have argued that the warehouses match or are lower than the cities that they are in.

The e-commerce giant has several times declined to disclose how many of its workers have been infected by Covid-19.

At least 45 workers at Amazon’s Shakopee facility, known as MSP1, have fallen sick with the coronavirus, resulting in a rate of infection of 1.7%, according to the memo viewed by CNBC.

The memo had circulated at the facility and was first reported by news outlet Bloomberg. Issued in May, the memo revealed that infections were nearly five times the rate of surrounding counties and far higher than the rate of 0.1% in Scott County, where MSP1 is located.

Amazon has dodged accusations that its warehouses have spread the virus, saying the “overall rate of infection and increase or decrease of total cases is highly correlated to the overall community rate of infection.”

Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Cheeseman said that the company firmly believes that employees are not spreading the virus at work, “given the robust safety measures we’ve put into place.”

“We have redeployed a large number of our data scientists, technologists, and operations employees to focus on COVID-19 and ensure the safety of our workforce, including thousands of individuals on our health and safety teams,” Cheeseman said. “In addition to a deep dive by a site, other tools include social distancing audits and having an epidemiologist review available data to ensure our safety measures are effectively protecting workers from exposure to COVID-19 in the workplace.”

As of Tuesday, the MSP1 facility had reported 92 cases total, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. A total of 198 coronavirus cases have been confirmed among Amazon workers throughout Minnesota, the agency said.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and have not been compensated for this article.