Amazon is expecting thousands of its operations employees at a COVID-19 vaccination event on Monday at the company’s fulfillment center in Kent, Wash.
It’s the first on-site vaccination event for Amazon workers in Washington state. The tech giant has held events at fulfillment centers in Missouri, Nevada, and Kansas, it stated in a March 25 blog post.
Amazon is working with several licensed health care providers to administer the shots and sign-ups are still taking place. Fulfillment center BF14 employs nearly 3,000 people and Amazon said the event is open to warehouse workers from surrounding area sites as well.
“Our events will protect Amazon employees while also helping ease the burden on community-run vaccination clinics,” Amazon said.
Amazon lobbied the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention back in December, as vaccines were first rolling out in the U.S., to take care of some of the its workers as soon as possible. Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of worldwide operations, said in a letter at the time that the company’s essential workers have played a role in keeping customers safe by allowing them to get important products delivered at home.
Clark sent another letter to newly elected President Joe Biden in January saying that the company was prepared to leverage its “operations, information technology, and communications capabilities and expertise to assist in vaccination efforts.” Clark again stressed that Amazon’s front-line workers should receive the vaccine at the earliest appropriate time.
Later in January, Amazon turned its meeting center at its downtown Seattle headquarters into a mass vaccination site for the general public. Amazon partnered with Virginia Mason for the first pop-up clinic on Jan. 24 that vaccinated 2,400 people.
The company said this week it is celebrating 50,000 doses administered at that HQ clinic.
Amazon will expand its on-site efforts to more fulfillment center employees across the country as more of the vaccine supply becomes available.
Monday’s event will take place from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Amazon’s BFI4, 21005 64th Ave. S., Kent, Wash., 98032.
