Amazon. com Inc. was ordered to close an outdoor facility in Toronto for two weeks amid consideration among public fitness officials about building Covid-19 instances within the complex.
While the rate of Covid-19 infection has declined in the Peel region in recent weeks, the internal rate of the Brampton, Ontario distribution center has “increased significantly,” the local fitness authority said on a Friday. have experienced “high-risk exposure,” the firm said.
“This Amazon facility is located on a vulnerable network and employs thousands of people,” Lawrence C. Loh, Health Medical Officer of the Peel Region, said in the press release. “It is a complicated but mandatory resolution to prevent propagation either within the facility and on our network. “
Amazon disagreed with the physical fitness authority’s findings. “We have just completed our new mandatory testing circular with a positivity rate of less than 1%, and it turns out that there is little threat of spread within our facilities,” said a corporate spokesman in an email. “We do not believe that knowledge will help this closure and we will appeal this decision. “
Amazon has been processing Covid-19 in its warehouses and other logistical amenities for more than a year after the first cases were detected among the first hot spots of the virus in Europe.
The online retail giant has chosen to keep epidemic services running with more advanced cleanup measures and social esttachment procedures to complete them.
The exceptions come with a Kentucky warehouse that the state governor ordered closed after an outbreak last year, and a New Jersey warehouse that was temporarily closed in December after asymptomatic cases were discovered.
All workers at the Canadian facility will have to isolate themselves for 14 days, unless they have tested positive in the last 90 days and have finished their isolation period, the fitness firm said.
Peel Public Health is running with Amazon Canada to control the outbreak, he said. The two-week shutdown will give Amazon Canada time for “additional operational changes” advised by local fitness authorities.
Some 20,000 Amazon workers had the Covid-19 in the first six months of the pandemic, an infection rate that Amazon said was lower than would have been expected from an employer of its size, some experts say the company provided inadequate knowledge to assess that claim. .
“Nothing is more vital than the fitness and protection of our workers and the communities we serve,” said Amazon’s spokesman. “We have done and are doing everything we can to help and protect them during the pandemic, as well as requiring 100 percent normal testing of all workers” at Ontario facilities.
– With Stephen Wicary’s