News reports of death from covid-19 at Amazon
A recent article in Theverge.com reports of an Amazon employee dying from covid-19
TV news has been reporting on Amazon for months. This is just one example of many news stories.
Facts the Verge and NBC presented about Amazon workers dying from covid-19
Eight Amazon workers have officially died from covid-19
Three of these workers had been employed in Amazon warehouses. The article does not state where the others were employed.
Amazon recently hired an additional 175,000 workers
Amazon has not wished to close facilities where workers tested positive. It has been put under pressure to do so.
In response to public pressure Amazon will spend $4 billion on coronavirus saftey measures.
Putting the facts into perspective
How much danger are Amazon workers really in? Eight deaths may seen like a lot, but that really depends on how many workers there are. Years ago I was a mail carrier. Another mail carrier in my post office got lung cancer. He Never even smoked or was in poor health. He just suddenly felt sick and a few months later died. About the same time another had to take months off for cancer treatment. Two of fifty mail carriers seemed like a lot. That was 4% of the carriers at that post office. It was one small indication that cancer is a big problem.
Last year it was close to 800,000 people worked for Amazon. If they recently hired another 175,000 that would put their workforce near a million. For the purposes of this article I'll go with the low number and say 800,000.
So 8 out of 800,000 employees caught coronavirus and died. We do not know much about these cases. Their ages, other health conditions and issue with their treatment are not public. Did they die from coronavirus or with it? But, for the sake of argument I will assume that all eight died from covid-19 despite receiving the best medical care.
8 of 800,000 comes down to a 0.001% chance of an Amazon worker dying from covid-19.
Now, lets look at death statistics more broadly. How many workers at Amazon have died from all other causes? The following table is complied with data from Statista.com.
Death rate in United states per 100,000:
I do not have detailed demographic statistics on Amazon employees. Therefore this section will be more of a thought exercise about fear mongering and statistic. For the sake of argument I will make certain assumptions. All of which will be in the direction of erring to a high death rate inside of Amazon.
For the first assumption I will take national death rate for people aged 25 - 29 and apply it to all Amazon workers. Sure, some employees are younger, but many older. This age range is good enough to ensure that I do not overestimate the number of workers who are expected to die of all other causes.
Death rate per 100,000 was 171.3 for males and 68.8 for females. Averaging those two numbers and we get about 120 deaths per 100,000. As an aside, considering how important it is to save every possible life from coronavirus, you would think people would care about the high rate of preventable young male death. I was not aware it was this bad until looking at the numbers to write this post.
120 deaths per 100,000 is based on the national population of 25 - 29 year olds. My second assumption will be that many people are simply to sick to work. Therefore Amazon is not hiring them. So instead of 120 deaths per 100,000 I will go with 60. We thus arrive at the estimate that 60 out of every 100,000 Amazon workers will die this year. This is through no fault of Amazon. The sad fact is that people die. Sometimes people die while still restively young. Therefore any large organization such as Amazon or the United State Postal Service will loose some of their employees each year.
So we can take these numbers and see how many Amazon workers are dying of coronavirus compared to all other causes:
1 death out of 100,000 due to coronavirus
60 deaths out of 100,000 due to all other causes
Another way of looking at it, over 98% of Amazon employee deaths were caused by something else other than covid-19.
The top causes of death in that age group are: accidents, cancer, cardiovascular disease and suicide. This is data taken from before the world of covid-19, but flu and cold deaths caused 1.4% of deaths in age 25 - 44 range. Why don't we have a monumental effort to stop these death like we have for covid-19. Where are the daily death counts on TV news of how many people died by car accident or suicide?
Death from coronavirus is a tragedy. Death from anything else is a statistic.
Yes, every life matters. Every covid-19 death matters. But why does each covid-19 death matter so much more than any other? A full third of deaths in the aged 25 - 44 range are car accidents. Yet we don't tell people not to drive.
Amazon's response to their covid-19 crisis
As a business Amazon is not hurting. Small businesses have been closed due to the lockdown. Many will never reopen. Having a whole country stuck at home with stores closed means online ordering is up. Business is actually booming for Amazon. So when I present the numbers on how much fighting covid-19 is costing Amazon, I'm not trying to get people to feel bad for Jeff Bezos. Regardless of how much we feel about Amazon we should be honest about the facts.
Due to mounting pressure from employees, the media and government Amazon will spend $4 billion from April to June on covid-19 prevention. That is over $4000 per employee. I can only imagine it will be spent on masks, gloves, hand sanitizer, plexiglass, barriers and other devices to keep workers away from each other and squeaky clean.
What will Amazon employees get out of this $4 billion investment in their health?
If employee health is really the issue does any of this make sense? 98% of Amazon employee deaths are from other causes. What if that $4000 per employee was spent on easing stress at the work place? Maybe a plan to give workers better access to healthly food and nutritional supplements. For this kind of money, each employee could have their own team of naturopathic doctor, chiropractor and massage therapist paid for!
Or perhaps money could first be spent on studying what factor are the leading cause of ill health among workers. That way the money could be spent wisely and not based on hysteria.
Instead Amazon is turning its facilities into germaphobia obstacle courses. What science do we have that this will do anything to improve worker safety or reduce death? From what we know about sars-cov-2 it is actually a weak virus. Many people are asymptomatic and don't know they have it. For most who have symptoms it is very mild. Perhaps working to improve the immune system of the most vulnerable, so they do not get sick if exposed to coronavirus is a better option?
The skeptic may say that is speculation. I have no absolute proof that improving the general health and well being of a population will prevent covid-19 deaths. But neither is there any data that the germaphobia obstacle course will save lives either. All this that Amazon and the rest of our country is doing: masks, plexiglass, "social distancing" and more is not proven to work.
The negative effects of fighting coronavirus
Before coronavirus became a problem working conditions at Amazon where already difficult. They are horrible to their employees which is one of the reasons I have been boycotting them for two years. So now Amazon is taking their already stressful working conditions, and adding more stress to it. Face masks impair breathing and may become breading ground for bacteria it not used properly. That is a health risk. What about just the stress of "social distancing" or possible toxic effects of flooding a building with disinfectant?
The germaphobe obstacle course may prevent some infections. But it is like a drug with many nasty side effects. That is why when they do drug studies, there is something called a cost/benefit analysis. Where is the germaphobe obstacle course cost/benefit analysis. No one is doing this. It may be that the treatment is worse than the disease? Increasing workplace stress can be deadly.
Coronavirus and the cost of fear
Waging an all out battle against an enemy no matter what, has a cost. Amazon does not have a cost/benefit analysis for its safety measure. Amazon has done pretty much everything it can do to stop covid-19 within the currant paradigm of lockdown. That still is not enough for its critics. The only thing that will truly satisfy them is to just shut everything down.
Amazon'anti-coronavirus measures need no science. This is about silencing pressure from the outside to do something. The cost/benefit analysis is irrelevant.
Nor does society have a cost/benefit analysis for lockdown. People may get sick because they are unable to see their doctors. I've had this problem with clients not able to come in to see me. Suicide rates are going up. I've already touched on the danger in chronic mask wearing and increased stress. The loss of human touch from a handshake or hug has its cost. These are just a few of many costs we are paying because the government told us we needed to fight coronavirus. When the costs are all added up, is it worth it?
Media hysteria is not harmless.
The way to combat a crisis is not with fear. What we need is rationale, wisdom and compassion. Fear mongering is not benign. Mindless fear-mongering for the sake of trying to grab a headline is unethical. The next time you catch the media hyping up fear around coronavirus or anything else, it's best to step back and think about things first. Yes, each of those Amazon employee deaths does matter. However, the data does not suggest that Amazon employees are dying in extraordinary numbers from coronvirus. They are several times more likely to die of a car accident, cancer or heart disease than coronavirus. As a naturopathic doctor I am committed to health care and especially preventative measures.
While it is good to see Amazon invest $4 billion in employee health, the merits of what they are spending the money on is questionable. What data do we have that Amazon's "Deep Cleaning" is going to amount to anything besides calming down its critics.
At least Amazon can claim it's measures are as "Evidence Based" as the government's.
