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Joe Biden faces a number of pressing challenges during his early days as the new US president, but one of the most important is managing the ongoing deployment of the Covid-19 vaccine. So far, the process has not gone smoothly, and states have only vaccinated a fraction of the expected population.
Amazon says it can help.
In one letter to president Obtained by NBC news, Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon’s global retail business, offered the company’s help in the vaccination effort. While the offer may be sincere, it is not entirely selfless.
As Clark points out, Amazon has more than 800,000 employees in the United States, and most of them are essential workers who need to be around Amazon’s distribution warehouses, data centers, and Whole Foods stores to do their jobs. In his letter, he proposes that these workers receive the Covid-19 vaccine “as soon as possible” and says it will help the effort.
It wouldn’t be the worst start to getting more Americans vaccinated, and Amazon, of course, has a clear interest in keeping its workforce healthy. At the start of the pandemic, the company sometimes struggled to keep its employees from getting sick, and some even staged walkouts because they felt Amazon hadn’t done enough to protect them. The problems have helped stumble in Amazon’s deemed efficient operations. In October, the company revealed that nearly 19,816 of its employees had tested positive or were presumed positive for Covid-19.
Clark also said Amazon could leverage “its capabilities and expertise in operations, information technology and communications” as part of a larger effort to immunize Americans. Some supply chain experts, such as Nada Sanders, professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University, suggested that Biden bring in logistics expertise from Amazon to oversee vaccine distribution. due to the company’s ability to quickly manage and deliver inventory. Amazon, meanwhile, probably wouldn’t mind siding with the Biden administration as it continues to push back antitrust investigations by federal agencies.
It’s unclear how effective Amazon could be in speeding up mass vaccination of Americans. Some of the factors that have slowed the process include staffing issues at local hospitals and technology issues that prevent the federal and state government from effectively sharing information. Amazon can also be great for getting toothpaste or groceries from a warehouse to a customer, but moving vaccines requires specialized ultra-low temperature freezers.
But if the Biden administration decides it wants help from Amazon, the company says it’s ready.
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