By
Mayowa Adebajo
April 12th, 2024
In a letter to President Joe Biden, Amazon’s Worldwide Consumer CEO Dave Clark said that the government can leverage Amazon’s facilities and robust distribution channels for effective and faster distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine.
On Wednesday, January 20, Joseph Biden took oath as the 46th President of the United States. The Biden administration has already proposed a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 economic relief plan of which $415 billion shall go towards vaccine roll-out. Just as the Biden administration takes charge, e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) jumps into the game. In a congratulatory letter to President Biden and Vice President Kamla Harris, Worldwide Consumer CEO Dave Clark has made an interesting proposition. Amazon has offered a helping hand to assist President Biden in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine across America.
Amazon has the strongest supply chain and also the second-largest employer in America. With “over 800,000 employees in the United States, most of whom are essential workers,” Amazon has the potential to take the distribution task. NBC News had access to the letter from CEO Dave Clark to President Biden. Writing to the President, the Amazon CEO said:
“Amazon stands ready to assist you in reaching your goal of vaccinating 100 million Americans in the first 100 days of your administration. We are prepared to leverage our operations, IT, & communications capabilities and expertise to assist your administration’s vaccination efforts. 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.”
The CEO said that once the vaccines are available, Amazon can leverage its facilities. The CEO also added that Amazon is “prepared to leverage our operations, information technology, and communications capabilities and expertise to assist your administration’s vaccination efforts.”
Amazon (AMZN) Stock Jumps 4.5% after the Offer to Biden
On Wednesday, Amazon (AMZN) stock also jumped 4.57% closing the trading session at $3263 levels. Last year, during the pandemic, Amazon sales skyrocketed with e-commerce taking a parabolic surge. The company registered record sales every successive quarter in 2020.
As we can see the AMZN stock and company valuations have literally doubled since the lows of March 2020. However, the company has struggled to match up with its worker safety. In October 2020, Amazon declared that 19,000 of its front-line workers at Amazon and Whole Foods tested positive. This has thus become a matter of intense scrutiny in recent times.
Amazon CEO has also asked the Biden administration to vaccinate the workers at the “earliest appropriate time”. Last month, the CEO made a similar request to the CDC.