How is this just starting? Here in Singapore, employers have been required to do twice-daily temperature checks for months.<p>This is the lowest of low-hanging fruit.
This response from Amazon is better than nothing, but given that recent figures show that up to 25% of people may be asymptomatic, might these temperature checks give people a false sense of security? They should have any employee with _any_ symptoms stay home and self-quarantine for longer than 3 days.<p>They should really focus on getting face masks for employees faster by using nonmedical fabric masks, which can help prevent asymptomatic transmission by blocking respiratory droplets from spreading. The article says the surgical masks won't arrive until next week. And they should really be using some alternative fabric mask, rather than surgical masks which should go to healthcare workers.<p>Each day that interventions are delayed makes a huge difference.<p>More thoughts at <a href="https://shouldiwearafacemask.com" rel="nofollow">https://shouldiwearafacemask.com</a><p>(Edited to remove suggestion to close until they get masks with a compromise to use nonmedical fabric masks.)
This sentence stuck out to me:<p>"The company will also use machine-learning software to monitor building cameras and determine whether employees are staying at safe distances during their shifts, or whether they are often huddled too close together"<p>I can see that working in tandem with some kind of alarm or alert sounding when workers are too close together. The second order effect, would be some kind of Pavlovian response in Amazon warehouse workers even beyond this physical distancing period.<p>That's the kind of stuff you used to read in sci-fi novels.
They really should have been doing temperature checks a month ago. Amazon is pretty critical infrastructure right now. Many people would be up a creek if Amazon had to shut down.
How are they so late on this? I thought Bezos was going to be all over figuring out how to keep people working safely, that's going to be a huge factor in the success or failure of businesses going forward.
What is the accuracy of non-contact infrared thermometers sensors in detecting high body temperatures? If you use an off the shelf cheap non-contact thermometer then your will read ~32C when you measure your forehead temperature. As far as I can tell most health non-contact thermometers work by measuring the ambient temperature and using this to calibrate the measured forehead temperature. But there seem to be many factors in play: if a worker has just come from another colder or hotter environment, the size of a workers head, ambient air speed, hair covering, where the operator aims the device...<p>In the best study [1] I have seen using expensive ($25,000) equipment, the sensitivity vs specificity is too low [2] to suggest that they are useful outside of environments that can tolerate high levels of false positives. To catch 90% of the people with Covid-19 you will inadvertently turn away at least 10% of your workforce as false positives.<p>I would be interested in seeing studies from actual workplace screenings in terms of how many workers are turned away and how many feverish workers are actually detected.<p>[1]<a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/16/11/10-0703_article" rel="nofollow">https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/16/11/10-0703_article</a>
[2]<a href="https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/16/11/10-0703-f1" rel="nofollow">https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/16/11/10-0703-f1</a>
1. Everyone should wear surgical masks<p>2. Temperature checks everywhere<p>3. Testing needs to be ubiquitous and fast<p>4. Backtrace every outbreak and quarantine everyone that was in contact
At a question and answer session in my region (we have them daily) one question was about masks.<p>The doctor who answered said most (non medical) people don't know how to wear them properly. Another problem is taking the mask off without infecting yourself.
Do not wear your face mask like the gentleman front and center in the photo! Not covering your nose has become the source of many memes but it still widespread. Simply having the fabric on your face does not grant you a protective aura.
They seem to have randomly stopped delivering some items for 3 weeks even though they have them in stock. It's very inconsistent; I need a new inner tube which will be delivered tomorrow but while I'm at it I could do with new tires too, but those don't turn up until 30th April even though they are in stock. Could they not just deliver the items all at the same time?
Everyone who is still working to provide essential services should be wearing masks.<p>There is a major shortage of PPE, so non-healthcare workers should be wearing nonmedical fabric masks or homemade masks. <a href="https://shouldiwearafacemask.com" rel="nofollow">https://shouldiwearafacemask.com</a> for a full explanation with the science.
I cannot find accurate information, but the duration of the illness for the people that do recover from mild cases is around 12-15 days; sending people home if they have fever for "minimum 3 days" does not make sense, you send them home until they have no fever for at least 3 days, so they are clean.
I'm sure there's a German word for "a company announcing a positive step that hurts its reputation because everybody thought they were doing it already". Closely related to the "software feature announcement that everyone can't believe it didn't have already".
I'm also curious about how they are dealing with the actual sent packages. From past videos I've seen, workers place the objects in boxes. So if a worker is sick, wouldn't they be sending contaminated items out? Is amazon doing anything about that in particular?
Imagine if we had a healthcare system like Singapore. Not like the one we currently have now, where the government interferes in the free market and as a result the cost goes through the roof.
Both Amazon, Facebook, and eBay should be sued for enabling price gouging. I report at least 20 ads a day on Facebook for overpriced face masks, there are still tons of masks and respisrators on eBay and other overpriced necessesities such as toilet paper, paper towels, and hand sanitizers. Amazon also allows a lot of crooks to sell stuff and never deliver it and now they blocked a lot of non-medical grade stuff for "governments and hospitals" like 2 oz sanitier gels and others. In addition, Amazon also now has all out of stock items as "Temporarily out of stock.", i.e. lying to you and tricking you to place an order and wait for it to be delivered... one day!
TL;DR: starting next week, Amazon will start:<p>1) taking temperatures of employees, fever >100.4°F to be sent home for min 3 days<p>2) giving surgical masks to employees once it receives shipments of orders of “millions”<p>3) using machine learning-powered video software to monitor social distancing<p>(Shameless plug for a little site I made to help spread the word that we need #masks4all: <a href="https://shouldiwearafacemask.com" rel="nofollow">https://shouldiwearafacemask.com</a>)
How are temperature checks useful? I thought I'd read that people are asymptomatic for up to 2 weeks, during which time they can spread it. If that is the case, temperature checks do absolutely nothing to stop the spread here...
I just hope Amazon has bulked ordered masks of sufficient quality that we ourselves can buy some from Amazon.com that are sold by Amazon.<p>We have to move to a mask culture until we get a vaccine.
Correct me if Im wrong, but even with temperature checks which you may not have you are still potentially a carrier? If so, I hope we can find a better detection system if a vaccine isn't created ASAP.
For those interested in reading the actual journalism, not a blog re-writing someone else's work:<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon-com-masks-e/exclusive-amazon-to-deploy-masks-and-temperature-checks-for-workers-by-next-week-idUSKBN21K1Y6" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon...</a><p>The HN link should probably be changed.
...because their workers are striking across the country:<p><a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/amazon-employees-coronavirus-walkout" rel="nofollow">https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolineodonovan/amazon...</a><p>Labor organizing - it works!
> Amazon has detailed someone measures its taking<p>Does techcrunch not have copy editors? Two errors in the first six words of this article. I was an editor at my high school newspaper and we would not have published this.
I wish we knew more about how much the virus is spread by asymptomatic workers in those settings. Otherwise it seems like closing the barn door after the horses have fled.<p>EDIT FOR CLARITY: I'm referring to the conditions specific to these Amazon fulfillment centers. Not only specific to the screening regime that Amazon is using, but also to the airflow patterns, specific surface materials, cleaning schedule, etc.<p>Last I checked, it was generally accepted that covid19 can be spread while people are still asymptomatic, even if they practice 2-meter spacing and are wearing masks.<p>Because even with those measures in place, persons can still contaminate their hands with fluids mucus / saliva / tears, and then go on to touch objects or surface that will subsequently be touched by others.<p>Therefore, while prohibiting employees with fevers or other signs of covid19 infection are undoubtedly a good idea, there's still <i>some</i> risk of person-to-person transmission even with those who pass that screening.<p>It's the probability of <i>that</i> kind of transmission that interests me. Because if it's non-zero, there are a few questions worth asking:<p>- Should Amazon take <i>additional</i> measures to prevent person-to-person transmission? E.g., run most products through an anti-microbial UV lamp? Tweak their AI camera monitors to also look for people touching their faces?<p>- If that can compare the transmission probabilities of (a) the employees who pass that screening system vs. (b) those who would not, and the probabilities are very close, is the world better off by allowing people in group (b) to continue working?