Amazon offers to help Biden with vaccine distribution

Amazon sent a letter to President Biden in his first hours of office Wednesday offering to assist the new administration with its coronavirus vaccine distribution. 

Dave Clark, Amazon’s CEO of consumer business, said the company is willing to help by leveraging Amazon’s “operations, information technology, and communications capabilities” to assist Biden with his goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans within his first 100 days in the White House. 

“Our scale allows us to make a meaningful impact immediately in the fight against COVID-19, and we stand ready to assist you in this effort,” Clark wrote. 

He also said Amazon has an agreement in place with a licensed third-party occupational health care provider to administer vaccines on-site at its facilities. 

“We are prepared to move quickly once vaccines are available,” he added. 

In the letter to Biden, Clark again pushed for Amazon’s more than 800,000 essential workers to be prioritized in vaccine rollouts. 

“The essential employees working at Amazon fulfillment centers, AWS data centers, and Whole Foods Market stores across the country who cannot work from home should receive the COVID-19 vaccine at the earliest appropriate time. We will assist them in that effort,” he wrote. 

Clark wrote a letter last month addressed to the chairman of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices similarly urging the government to prioritize essential workers, such as its warehouse, grocery store and data center employees, to get the vaccine. Clark’s last letter was addressed to the government before Wednesday’s transfer of power. 

A spokesperson for the White House was not immediately available for comment in response to Amazon’s letter.