JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – An Amazon employee who works at Jacksonville’s fulfillment center near the airport has tested positive for COVID-19, the company confirmed.
A spokesperson for the company said Tuesday the associate, who was last on-site at the Pecan Park Road location on Wednesday, is receiving medical care and is in quarantine.
“We are supporting the individual who is recovering,” the Amazon spokesperson said in an email. “We are following guidelines from local officials and are taking extreme measures to ensure the safety of employees at our site.”
News4Jax confirmed the case after receiving multiple calls from employees worried about their safety and others.
Amazon managers were tracing back the employee’s contact to see who else may have been exposed. Any associate who was possibly exposed will be alerted and asked to self-quarantine for 14-days, with pay. Amazon will pay employees diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine for up to 2 weeks.
“We don’t know if we’ve been exposed,” said an Amazon employee, who wished to remain unnamed.
The company said cleaning crews are sanitizing the facility more often and enforcing social distancing.
“Upset, angry, scared -- basically in fear for my safety, in my own immediate family safety. My mother takes chemotherapy and I have a grandmother. She’s a senior citizen, of course. And I just feel like I don’t want to be bringing anything home to them,” said another employee, who also did not wish to be named. “I think the company should send us home and disinfect the building from top to bottom. There’s no way to tell if that person touched anything that anyone else touched.”
Employees are required to stay home and seek medical attention if they feel unwell. They’re also told to clean their work stations and vehicles with disinfectant wipes at the start and end of every shift.
In 2018, News4Jax toured the 855,000-square-foot center, which supports more than 2,000 full-time employees. Workers are separated into individual workstations throughout the center, fulfilling thousands of orders daily.
The company continues to hire more associates to keep up with the demand, but most interviews are video-based.
As of late Tuesday morning, there were 1,412 coronavirus cases in the state, including 50 in Duval County, according to Florida Department of Health data.