Amazon’s chief fulfilment centre in Sydney has been forced to shut down this morning, after a COVID outbreak
Two workers at the Amazon Australia facility in Moorebank tested positive to COVID on the weekend, forcing over 100 casual workers into isolation.
The centre stocks half a million products, and is currently being deep cleaned.
This will no doubt cause havoc to the company’s local distribution capabilities, and couldn’t have come at a worse time for the giant, as Sydney ups its online spending amidst the lockdown.
Craig Fuller, Director of Operations, Amazon Australia said: “We are supporting two team members as they isolate at home. The safety of our people remains our highest priority and we have taken prompt, proactive measures to ensure the safety of employees at our site. We are working with NSW Health and will continue to follow their guidance.”
Amazon emailed me with the following information regarding the outbreak:
- We have made all people who work at the site aware of the two confirmed cases.
- The people working in or who visited our building who had close contact with these people have been alerted by NSW Health and are self-isolating for 14-days
- Any Amazon employees and causal agency workforce who are diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into isolation by Amazon or NSW Health will receive up to two weeks paid leave.
- Out of an abundance of caution, we’ve made the decision to proactively pause operations temporarily, and will continue to follow guidance from NSW Health. We are supporting affected team members who will all be paid for their scheduled shift.
- We are planning to resume operations as soon as possible this week
- The site has also undergone a deep clean
- While we have proactively paused operations at our Moorebank site temporarily, the rest of our Sydney sites continue to operate. The majority of orders can be fulfilled from our other sites and we are already leveraging our national operations network to minimise impact to customers.
