Amazon Euclid fulfillment center employee tests positive for COVID-19

EUCLID, Ohio (WOIO) - Amazon confirmed an employee at their CLE3 fulfillment center in Euclid tested positive for COVID-19.

Spokesperson Owen Torres said the employee was last onsite May 11.

“We are supporting the individuals who are recovering. Our top concern is ensuring the health and safety of our employees, and we expect to invest approximately $4 billion from April to June on COVID-related initiatives to get products to customers and keep employees safe. This includes spending more than $800 million in the first half of the year on COVID-19 safety measures, with investments in personal protective equipment, enhanced cleaning of our facilities, less efficient process paths that better allow for effective social distancing, higher wages for hourly teams, and developing our own COVID-19 testing capabilities, etc.”

Amazon alerts all individuals who work at a site where there is a positive case, not just those who have come in close contact with the diagnosed individual, according to Torres.

However, Amazon does tell any associate who has come in close contact with that diagnosed individual to self-quarantine for 14 days and pay that self-quarantined associate for their time at home, according to Torres.

According to Amazon Spokesperson Rachael Lighty, Amazon has implemented the following safeguards during the pandemic:

Implement over 150 process updates, including sanitization efforts
Immediately investigate incidents where employees aren’t social distancing
Distributed face masks on April 15 and required them to be worn since
Implement disinfectant spraying across operations
Conduct temperature checks on all employees
Give an employee diagnosed with COVID-19 up to two weeks paid time off in addition to other paid and unpaid time off options
Increased pay for hourly employees by $2 per hour
Doubled the regular hourly base pay for each overtime hour worked

Lighty also said Amazon has filled 100,000 new jobs since March and are hiring 75,000 more to meet customer demand and help existing employees with their duties.

Amazon employees get comprehensive health benefits their first day on the job, according to Lighty.