Amazon says 19,816 workers tested positive for COVID-19

Amazon shared in a blog post published on Thursday that 19,816 workers of Amazon's front-line employees or 1.44 percent have tested positive or been "presumed positive for COVID-19." The retailer says it employs 1,372,000 US front-line employees across both Amazon and Whole Foods.

This is the first time Amazon has disclosed the number its workers have suffered COVID-19 and comes after months of demands for increased transparency from workers, governments, and Amazon investors. Amazon warehouse workers worked amongst themselves to try to determine how many of their colleagues have contracted the disease. The revelation is also notable following comments from Amazon senior vice president of worldwide operations Dave Clark in May, who said that the "total number of cases isn't particularly useful" in a 60 Minutes interview.

Amazon says that its 19,816 cases are lower than the 33,952 it expected it would have seen while comparing its total employee count with a general population case rate reported by Johns Hopkins University. But while that might paint Amazon in a positive light, at least 10 employees died due to this disease, NBC News confirmed with Amazon in an article published yesterday. However, Amazon didn't discuss those deaths in today's blog post.

Amazon says it conducts thousands of COVID-19 tests every day, to conduct 50,000 tests per day across 650 sites by November. Amazon claims it has distributed more than 100 million face masks, instituted temperature checks, and introduced "enhanced cleaning procedures" at its sites.

However, workers at a warehouse in Indianapolis, Indiana told The Verge that cleaning has been irregular and that the site is too crowded for proper social distancing in May. Also in June, three warehouse workers sued the retailer company, claiming that working situations put them at risk of COVID-19 infection.