New pop-up clinic in Seattle is the latest in the company's multi-faceted pandemic response that has also included 1 million in-house COVID-19 tests for Amazon employees.

Beginning on January 24, Amazon will open its Seattle campus to host a pop-up clinic aimed at vaccinating the public against COVID-19. Jay Carney, Amazon Senior Vice President, Global Corporate Affairs, announced the effort in a news conference with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

'We're eager to help save lives here in our home state, to rebuild the economy with you, and to turn the page on COVID as quickly as we can,' Carney told the governor. He also said 'we're committing one of our own executives to be on loan to your team, to your Vaccine Command Center, so that we can leverage our expertise through that executive in your efforts going forward.'

Amazon's vaccine clinic, in partnership with Virginia Mason Hospital & Medical Center, is the latest in the company's effort to help control and ultimately end the pandemic. That has included more than 1 million in-house COVID testsconducted through the more than 650 sites around the U.S. where employees can get screened for the virus.

On a national level, Carney noted Amazon's outreach to President Joe Biden. 'We sent a letterto the president, offering any assistance we could provide in his efforts to vaccinate 100 million Americans in 100 days,' he said. 'We can leverage our operations, our information technology, our logistics and communications capabilities in ways that could help with his effort.'

As vaccine supply becomes available, Carney told Inslee that Amazon also stands ready to reduce the strain on public resources by doing in-house vaccinations of the tens of thousands of Amazon employees doing front-line jobs throughout Washington state. 'Because we have big employee bases in these fulfillment centers, we can get a lot of vaccinations done very quickly,' he said.

Inslee thanked Amazon for hosting the pop-up clinic and 'pitching in right here at the beginning' of the state's long push to vaccinate all Washingtonians. 'We know we're going to keep talking to you, too. There's a lot more work to do.'

With the Amazon vaccine clinic, Virginia Mason aims to vaccinate 2,000 people on its first day, and partner with Amazon to identify future pop up clinic opportunities. The January 24 clinic will take place at Amazon's downtown Seattle campus, and is open to Washingtonians who currently qualify to be vaccinated under the state's COVID-19 Vaccine Phases guidelines. For more information about the clinic, go to
https://www.virginiamason.org/vaccinewaitlist.

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Amazon.com Inc. published this content on 21 January 2021 and is solely responsible for the information contained therein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 22 January 2021 01:21:01 UTC