Amazon offers assistance to President Biden with the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines

Amazon presented an offer to President Joe Biden to help deliver Covid-19 vaccinations nationwide, a step that might speed up the federal effort to counter the pandemic.

Dave Clark, the CEO of Amazon's consumer business and one of the company's top executives pitched the idea to President Biden soon as he took office after the inaugural ceremony.  

“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,” Clark wrote in a letter.

The letter also calls for Amazon personnel, many of whom are necessary employees, to be vaccinated as soon as possible.

"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," Clark added. 

Biden has made the distribution of vaccine one of his top priorities, pledging in his first 100 days to deliver 100 million vaccine doses. The pace will marginally outweigh the final-week rate of 912,497 doses issued each day by Trump.

Amazon claims that they have the arrangement to provide vaccinations to staff on-site through a registered third-party workplace health care provider.

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the online retail platform has acted as a lifeline for countless Americans as people spent time quarantined and gradually dependent on home delivery.

In the United States, the online retail giant has more than 800,000 employees, making it the second-biggest private employer after Walmart Inc. As of September, more than 19,000 US staff at Amazon had contracted the virus.

Moreover, Biden is now dependent on Congress to provide $1.9 trillion in economic support in reaction to COVID-19. There are a plethora of state grievances related to lack of vaccine supply even though they are asked to vaccinate a large number of people.