Amazon ‘ready to assist’ Biden administration with COVID vaccine, company says. How?

Amazon wants to help President Joe Biden’s administration vaccinate millions of Americans — but how?

The Biden administration has a goal of administering 100 million COVID-19 vaccines in his first 100 days in office, McClatchy News reported. Amazon is offering up its thousands of employees and facilities to help administer the vaccines, Amazon CEO Dave Clark said Wednesday in a letter to Biden.

“We have an agreement in place with a licensed third-party occupational health care provider to administer vaccines on-site at our Amazon facilities,” Clark wrote in the letter. “We are prepared to move quickly once vaccines are available.”

The Biden administration said Thursday it has received offers from different companies to help with its vaccination goals.

“We’ve had a lot of outreach – some privately some publicly – from a range of businesses and private-sector entities and we certainly welcome that,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters during a press briefing Thursday. “And we’ll be considering all those offers and what makes the most sense in our plans and proposals.”

Amazon said it could also use its operations and technology to help the Biden administration in “vaccination efforts.” Amazon has more than 800,000 employees in the U.S., many of whom are essential workers and cannot work from home.

“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 Seattle-based company said.

Biden has already directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to start putting together “first federally-supported community vaccination centers” and have 100 centers open in the next month, McClatchy News reported.

This story was originally published January 21, 2021 at 9:10 AM with the headline "Amazon ‘ready to assist’ Biden administration with COVID vaccine, company says. How?."