The move, which comes as the shopping giant is scrambling to ensure its U.S. warehouses can remain operational, does not appear to be moving forward as CEOs from the firms, Abbott Laboratories and Thermo Fisher Scientific, said they do not have the capacity for such a job.
The test-makers’ workload is being dominated by the demands of the U.S. government, the CEOs said, according to notes from an internal meeting obtained by Reuters.
Last month, a test from Abbott Laboratories that claimed to detect the virus in as little as five minutes was granted emergency use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It was praised by president Donald Trump in a press briefing as a “whole new ballgame.”
But a document obtained by Kaiser Health News indicated state and public health laboratories would only be getting enough to test 5,500 people, although Abbott said more were being made.
“We are now temperature checking more than 100,000 employees per day,” he noted. “The complete rollout of temperature checks across our entire U.S. and European operations… is expected by early next week, at which point we will be testing hundreds of thousands of people daily.”
The executive said millions of face masks that were recently ordered by the company were starting to arrive and they would be distributed to employees “as quickly as possible.”
“We know it’s important for several industries for their workforces to be safe, but as we’ve said, right now we’ve prioritized the health care frontline workforce in outbreak hotspots and have been working with the White House Task Force, FDA, FEMA and CDC and state authorities to ensure they get to those areas. Through yesterday we’ve shipped 191,000 rapid tests to customers in 21 states.”
Reuters indicated the internal notes were from the same batch including criticism of the protesting staffer, Chris Smalls, penned by General Counsel David Zapolsky and first obtained by Vice.
“He’s not smart, or articulate, and to the extent the press wants to focus on us versus him, we will be in a much stronger PR position than simply explaining for the umpteenth time how we’re trying to protect workers,” Zapolsky wrote, fueling a widespread and immediate barrage of criticism.
“Despite that instruction to stay home with pay, he came onsite today, March 30, further putting the teams at risk. This is unacceptable and we have terminated his employment,” it added.
Following the leak of his notes about the meeting, Zapolsky said he had been frustrated and upset, and added, “I let my emotions draft my words and get the better of me.”
“These incidents have occurred at a very small number of sites and represent a few hundred employees out of hundreds of thousands,” he wrote.
“We want to be very clear that we respect the rights of these employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so. At the same time, these rights do not provide a blanket immunity against bad actions, particularly those that endanger the health, and potentially the lives, of colleagues.”
This article has been updated with comment from Abbott Laboratories.
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Medical advice
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Mask and glove usage
Healthy individuals only need to wear a mask if taking care of a sick person. Wear a mask if you are coughing or sneezing. Masks are effective when used in combination with frequent hand cleaning. Do not touch the mask while wearing it. Clean hands if you touch the mask. Learn how to properly put on, remove and dispose of masks. Clean hands after disposing of the mask. Do not reuse single-use masks. Regularly washing bare hands is more effective against catching COVID-19 than wearing rubber gloves. COVID-19 can still be picked up on gloves and transmitted by touching your face.
