The retail giant Amazon announced the closure of a warehouse located in northern New Jersey until December 26 after registering an increase in asymptomatic coronavirus cases.
Employees at the Robbinsville Township, NJ facility, known as PNE5, were informed Saturday that the site would be temporarily closed, according to a notice obtained by CNBC.
Amazon employees will be paid for any shift missed while the facility is closed, Amazon spokeswoman Lisa Levandowski told CNBC it’s a statement.
“We have detected an increase in the number of asymptomatic positive cases at our PNE5 facility in Northern New Jersey through our in-house COVID-19 testing program. We have proactively closed the site until December 26 as a precaution, “said Levandowski. “This is exactly why we created the program – to identify asymptomatic cases and make sure we can take swift action to prevent the spread.”
Levandowski did not immediately respond to questions about the total number of cases in PNE5 or whether the building will undergo additional cleaning while closed.
In October, Amazon revealed that nearly 20,000 front-line employees contracted Covid-19 between March 1 and September 19. At the time, the company said the infection rate among employees was 42% lower than expected, compared to the rate for the general population in the country.
Amazon has previously closed other facilities for short periods of time after registering new cases of coronavirus. In March, the company temporarily closed a delivery station in Queens after a worker tested positive for the coronavirus. That month, it also closed a facility in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, after multiple workers tested positive.
Most of Amazon’s warehouses have remained open during the pandemic, as they were deemed essential facilities, along with grocery stores, pharmacies, and banks, among other businesses.
The company has previously said that it has made “great efforts” to keep facilities clean and to make sure employees follow necessary safety precautions, such as wearing a mask, using hand sanitizer, practicing physical distancing and other measures. Amazon has also launched test sites in a significant portion of its warehouses and in October said it was running thousands of tests a day.
Still, warehouse and delivery workers across the United States have asked Amazon to do more to protect front-line employees, including reinstating temporary wage increases and granting paid sick leave.
The company is among several companies that have lobbied for their workers to get priority access to the coronavirus vaccine. Last week, Dave Clark, who runs Amazon’s retail operations, wrote to a panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asking that warehouse employees, Whole Foods workers, and data center employees ” receive the Covid-19 vaccine as soon as possible. “
On Sunday, the CDC panel voted that people 75 and older and essential front-line workers should be next in line for the coronavirus vaccine.
Firefighters, police officers, teachers, supermarket workers, public transportation workers and postal workers are among the essential workers included in the level, known as phase 1b. Other essential workers are expected to be included in the third wave.
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