SAN MARCOS, Texas — An undisclosed number of Amazon employees at its facility in San Marcos has tested positive for COVID-19, also known as coronavirus.
While Amazon would not provide an exact number, spokesperson Jen Crowcroft did provide the following statement:
"We are supporting the individuals who are recovering. Our top concern is ensuring the health and safety of our employees, and we expect to invest approximately $4 billion from April to June on COVID-related initiatives to get products to customers and keep employees safe. This includes spending more than $800 million in the first half of the year on COVID-19 safety measures, with investments in personal protective equipment, enhanced cleaning of our facilities, less efficient process paths that better allow for effective social distancing, higher wages for hourly teams, and developing our own COVID-19 testing capabilities, etc."
Crowcroft said Amazon has been updating employees any time a confirmed case occurs in one of its buildings. These notifications are sent via phone and/or text to all individuals who work at that site. Additionally, any person who may have had close contact with confirmed cases is asked to self-quarantine for 14 days with pay.
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Other actions taken by Amazon include:
- More than 150 process updates, including enhanced cleaning and social distancing measures
- Immediate investigation of any possible social distancing violations
- Personal protective gear distributions
- Disinfection spraying
- Temperature checks
- Up to two weeks of paid time off for anyone who is diagnosed with COVID-19, in addition to other paid and unpaid time off options
- Working to build scalable testing
- Filled 100,000 new jobs with plans to add 75,000 more
- Comprehensive health benefits
- Increased pay for hourly employees by $2 per hour
- Doubled the regularly hourly base pay for overtime hours
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