Warehouse workers and data centre employees at Amazon Web Services, US, may be on the line after health workers to receive the earliest possible access to the COVID vaccine.
Dave Clark, senior vice president, retail operations, Amazon, US, had sent a letter to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to request the same. He has also pointed out that the frontline workers of Amazon had played an integral role in serving the essential needs of the consumers when they had been forced to stay home and indoors during the pandemic.
Amazon employs more than 800,000 people in the US alone, placing it at a close second to Walmart in terms of providing employment. Amazon is not the only one going out of the way to try and get its frontline staff vaccinated. Uber and DoorDash have also urged the CDC to prioritise their drivers for vaccination, as they are also essential workers. Retail, restaurant, airline and the meatpacking industries have also requested for priority access.
Earlier, on December 1, a CDC panel had voted to give health-care workers and long-term carers in the hospitals the first doses of the vaccine. The CDC panel is soon going to vote on which category of workers should be vaccinated next. In addition to the essential workers who may make it to the second round, elderly people and vulnerable citizens are on the list too.
