Amazon employee working in the company’s Seattle headquarters tests positive for the coronavirus – 12 miles away from nursing home where six infected patients have died
- Amazon employee in Seattle went home feeling sick on February 25
- Employee subsequently tested positive for coronavirus, staff were told
- The infected worker is currently in quarantine, according to Amazon
- Amazon HQ is about 12 miles from the nursing home with deadly outbreak
- Six residents of the Life Care Center of Kirkland have died so far
An Amazon employee at the company’s Seattle headquarters has tested positive for coronavirus.
The company informed staff in an internal email that the employee went home feeling sick on February 25 and subsequently tested positive, but has not returned to the offices since then, according to the Seattle Times.
‘We’re supporting the affected employee who is in quarantine,’ the company said in a statement to DailyMail.com.
The worker was based in the company’s Brazil office building, at Ninth Avenue and Republican Street in South Lake Union.
The worker was based in the company’s Brazil office building (above), at Ninth Avenue and Republican Street in South Lake Union
The Life Care Center of Kirkland (above) nursing home has seen a horror outbreak of coronavirus with at least six deaths. It is about 12 miles from Amazon’s headquarters
The internal email sent to employees in Seattle and nearby Bellvue said that any employees who had been ‘in close contact’ with the infected worker were notified separately.
Amazon has more than 50,000 employees in Seattle, and more than 275,000 full-time workers across the U.S.
Last week, Amazon became one of the first U.S. companies to crack down on employee travel due to the outbreak, banning all ‘non-essential’ work trips.
The Seattle area has become an early coronavirus hot zone as the virus spreads in the U.S.
All nine coronavirus deaths on U.S. soil have come Washington, with six of them linked to a long-term care facility near Seattle with an acute outbreak.
Amazon’s headquarters is just a 12-mile drive away from the outbreak nursing home, the Life Care Center of Kirkland.
Pedestrians walk past the Amazon headquarters in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle in a file photo. Amazon has more than 50,000 employees in Seattle
The number of infections in the U.S. overall climbed past 100 on Tuesday, scattered across at least 15 states, with 27 cases in Washington alone.
‘What is happening now in the United States may be the beginning of what is happening abroad,’ said Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Messonnier noted that in China, where the outbreak began more than two months ago, older and sicker people are about twice as likely to become seriously ill as those who are younger and healthier. Most cases have been mild.
In suburban Seattle, 27 firefighters and paramedics who responded to calls at the infected nursing home were tested for the virus Tuesday using a drive-thru system set up in a hospital parking area.
Developing story, more to follow.