Amazon has offered to help President Joe Biden with distribution in order to achieve his goal of 100 million COVID-19 vaccinations in his first 100 days in office
Dave Clark, CEO of Amazon’s Worldwide Consumer division, said in a letter to Joe Biden that Amazon is “prepared to leverage our operations, information technology, and 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.”
Amazon also asked that its essential employees get the vaccine at the “earliest appropriate time”.
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Joe Biden’s plan calls for federal funds to create new community vaccination sites, reimbursement of state deployments of the National Guard to support vaccination efforts and matching state and local emergency costs through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
A number of states are reporting they are running out of vaccine, and tens of thousands of people who managed to get appointments for a first dose are seeing them canceled.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said about half of the 31 million doses distributed to the states by the federal government have been administered so far.
Only about 2 million people have received the two doses needed for maximum protection against the virus.
According to University of Washington Medicine’s Dr. Shireesha Dhanireddy, help from Amazon will be essential as thousands more people will become eligible for vaccines.