Coronavirus outbreak: Amazon begins making testing lab for workforce

Amazon.com has started building a lab that will enable it to test employees for the Covid-19 virus, the latest step the online retailer is taking to try to protect its warehouse workers and delivery drivers who are getting essential products to customers sheltering at home.
 

Amazon acknowledges its ad-hoc effort may not accomplish much during the current pandemic.
 

Still, it is assigning a team of scientists, software engineers and procurement specialists to build a lab that will let the company “start testing small numbers of our front line employees soon.” Tests are scarce, which has prevented public health officials from assessing the full scope of the outbreak across the US.
 

“We’ve begun the work of building incremental testing capacity,” Amazon said Thursday in a blog post.

“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.”

A day after Bezos toured warehouse, Amazon says a worker there has coronavirus
 

An Amazon warehouse visited this week by CEO Jeff Bezos confirmed its first employee coronavirus case, according to a message sent to workers on Thursday.  The employee who tested positive for Covid-19 was last at the site on Monday, according to the update Amazon sent. Amazon declined to comment.