Amazon May Start Testing Workers for Coronavirus

Amazon announced this week that it has put together a dedicated team that is working to develop “incremental testing capacity” for the coronavirus.

The company mobilized employees across the company, including research scientists, program managers, procurement specialists and software engineers, to form a dedicated team that will work on developing coronavirus tests.

The e-commerce giant said in a blog post that it hopes to begin testing small groups of its frontline workers soon before rolling the tests out to “all employees, including those showing no symptoms.”

In the post, the company said it has started building “incremental test capacity” that could eventually result in “regular testing of all employees, including those showing no symptoms.”

The hope is “to start testing small numbers of our front line employees soon,” Amazon said. “We are not sure how far we will get in the relevant time frame, but we think it’s worth trying, and we stand ready to share anything we learn with others.”

The company’s blog post reads:

If every person, including people with no symptoms, could be tested regularly, it would make a huge difference in how we are all fighting this virus. Those who test positive could be quarantined and cared for, and everyone who tests negative could re-enter the economy with confidence.

Until we have an effective vaccine available in billions of doses, high-volume testing capacity would be of great help, but getting that done will take collective action by NGOs, companies, and governments.

For our part, we’ve begun the work of building incremental testing capacity. A team of Amazonians with a variety of skills – from research scientists and program managers to procurement specialists and software engineers – have moved from their normal day jobs onto a dedicated team to work on this initiative.

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