Amazon (NASDQ: AMZN) has closed a warehouse in New Jersey until Dec. 26 after an increase in asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 among workers, the company confirmed to CNBC.
Warehouse workers across the country have been at greater risk of infection than many work groups because of the need to keep supplies moving and work in the same building. Amazon previously said 20,000 workers were infected since the start of the pandemic in mid-March through mid-September. Amazon has previously shuttered other facilities to contain outbreaks, mostly at the beginning of the year.
About 100 Amazon workers at a facility in New York walked off the job in March over concerns about worker safety and the company’s precautions against spread of the disease.
Last week Amazon wrote to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asking that warehouse workers be classified as essential and that they be designated for front-of-the-line access to new COVID vaccines now being distributed.
