Amazon to Begin Testing Workers for New Coronavirus

   By Maria Armental

Amazon.com Inc. plans to start testing a group of frontline workers and eventually all workers, including those who show no symptoms of infection from the new coronavirus, the company said Thursday.

The tech giant, which had been criticized for failing to do enough to protect workers during the pandemic, is already distributing masks to employees and checking workers' temperatures at facilities and grocery stores.

Next, it said, it wants to increase testing capacity and has reassigned workers, from research scientists to procurement specialists and software engineers, to work on the project.

Amazon said it would build a lab and would start testing small numbers of workers soon. No timeline or specific number of workers or locations was immediately given.

"Regular testing on a global scale across all industries would both help keep people safe and help get the economy back up and running," the company said in a blog post.

Write to Maria Armental at maria.armental@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 09, 2020 18:37 ET (22:37 GMT)

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