Coronavirus: internet giant Amazon begins building its own testing lab

With an eye toward possibly testing all of its employees for coronavirus, shopping giant Amazon said Thursday it is building a testing lab.

“A team of Amazonians with a variety of skills – from research scientists and program managers to procurement specialists and software engineers – have moved from their normal day jobs onto a dedicated team to work on this initiative,” the Seattle-based company said in a corporate blog post.

“We have begun assembling the equipment we need to build our first lab and hope to start testing small numbers of our front line employees soon.”

Amazon, like other employers with lots of people still coming in to work, is scrambling to update its processes and procedures to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus within its facilities.

This week, it began screening the temperature of each person arriving for work and distributing face masks. Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, sporting a mask, had his temperature checked as he entered a fulfilment centre in a video the company shared Wednesday night on social media.

But with asymptomatic transmission of coronavirus, even symptom screening will not be enough to slow the spread of Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.