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In Shareholder Letter, Bezos Emphasizes Need For More Coronavirus Testing (cnet.com) 83

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
In his annual shareholder letter, Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said that a next step for the company could be regularly testing its employees for the coronavirus, even if they show no symptoms. From a report: "Regular testing on a global scale, across all industries, would both help keep people safe and help get the economy back up and running," he wrote Thursday. Amazon first discussed the concept of developing its own testing capabilities last week. Bezos' public support for this initiative follows a similar push on Wednesday from banking and financial services leaders, who told President Donald Trump in a conference call that more widespread coronavirus testing is needed before the public would feel comfortable going out regularly again, The Wall Street Journal reported. This work is part of early-stage discussions by the White House, state governments and business leaders on how they will start reopening the economy following weeks of restrictive stay-at-home orders and mandated store closures. Along with far more testing, calls for people to regularly use face masks in public places are gaining more traction.
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In Shareholder Letter, Bezos Emphasizes Need For More Coronavirus Testing More

In Shareholder Letter, Bezos Emphasizes Need For More Coronavirus Testing

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  • Lots of people out there are asymptomatic. They get the virus and ever show few signs. They recover quickly. Is Bezos going to send out another memo forcing his workers (including the immune ones) to take the Gates Inoculation or be fired?

    • Re:Asymptomatic... (Score:5, Informative)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Thursday April 16, 2020 @10:00AM (#59954842)
      Not sure what your second sentence was about, but the number of asymptomatic but (hopefully) immune people is why we need the testing so badly. It'll happen too. I've given up on the federal government for this but America is good at cashing in when there is money to be made and I think Walgreens will be flooded with cheap antibody tests in a few months, and it will be pretty revealing.
      • trying to profit off it. Also, there's 30 million uninsured and 30-60 million under insured (depending on where you want to draw the line, for me if you have to ask yourself, "should I go to the doctor" you're under insured).

        The only way this gets solved is with a massive top down response. That means the Federal Government. It will probably happen about 6 months later than it should, but hopefully we don't have to wait until January 2021 (and the inauguration) to get it.

      • Can't tell if you're a Libertarian or not. Many of them are quite clever, but your comment doesn't sound clever. (For example, I believe Bezos himself might be such. And his shareholder letter sounds rather clever.)

        However, I think I can address your awkwardly worded opening question, though I can't yet tell if you're playing with a troll, being baited, or what. In the worst case the OP is an anti-vaxxer, and there's no hope of a rational discussion of any sort.

        The "second sentence was about" conspiracy the

      • Bill & Melinda Gates are donating billions on potential coronavirus vaccines. It's spurred a lot of trash talk of both the paranoid and snide varieties.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Bill Gates also funded a simulation study of a fictitious coronavirus of animal origins getting out in October of last year with John Hopkins, called Event 201, killing up to 65M people.

    • Until there is a universal vaccine, testing is the only way to know who cannot catch the virus (again), and who still needs to be protected from it

    • Asymptomatic patients are often more of a problem then the symptomatic ones. Because they will up and about spreading the virus, for the unlucky to catch and become seriously ill.

      Yes, it would be nice to know if you are now over it and immune where you can go back to work again. However, resources for testing isn't there to do the full checking, and it needs to be used for triage cases of ill people. Vs checking the status of healthy people.

      Unless they can make a long term test that lasts a few months, an

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        In Italy they've found that some people who have recovered are still able to spread the virus weeks later.

    • "forcing his workers (including the immune ones) "

      How do you know anyone is immune? There have been multiple reports of people recovering and getting sick again. Just because you've had a disease once doesn't mean you are 100% immune for life.

    • Our glorious leader, who singlehandedly built a multibillion-dollar company that provides employment for hundreds of thousands of people, would never do such a thing.

  • Loser (Score:1, Troll)

    by nagora ( 177841 )

    What a pathetic figure Bezos is. He literally has more money than he could ever spend but he still plods on doing the same shit over and over again. Writing letters to shareholders when you have billions in the bank? If that's what you're spending time - a resource you'll never get back - on then what exactly was the point?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      Not really, Bezos is rich but that doesn't mean he's swimming in the cash. Most of his assets are tied up in Amazon, if Amazon does poorly, he gets poorer. If Amazon fails, he stops being rich. It is very important for all businesses to do testing and make sure their workers don't get sick. Sick or quarantined workers means sick pay and reduced productivity.

      Unlike what the media wants you to believe, free market business have every reason to be involved in their workers welfare, hence why Henry Ford doubled

      • he's a member of the ruling class. Amazon could close it's doors tomorrow and he'd still be fabulously wealthy. Look at Trump. 6 bankrupcies and he's somehow president.

        The rich take care of their own. The working class, not so much.
        • Two different rulers, two different skill sets. Too Big to Fail vs. Too Big to Jail.

          --
          "It's socialism for the rich. Everyone else is treated to harsh capitalism."
          - Robert Reich

      • Bezos has sold billions in Amazon stock, it's likely he still has hundreds if not billions of dollars in highly liquid assets.

        This "rich guy's assets are all tied up in their valuable economic investments" logic is only partly true, really. They're also usually swimming in cash, hence the yachts, mansions, private jets and other high-dollar personal assets.

        If *I* was fucking Jeff Bezos, I would be very noisy and very public about committing at least a billion dollars of my personal cash and/or assets to in

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        Not really, Bezos is rich but that doesn't mean he's swimming in the cash. Most of his assets are tied up in Amazon, if Amazon does poorly, he gets poorer. If Amazon fails, he stops being rich.

        And he wouldn't be able to sell up? No one would make a offer for Amazon that left Bezo's with some spending cash?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by bobby ( 109046 )

      Okay, obviously you're not a fan of Bezos. I tend to be more open-minded, rather than opinionated. But I'm inherently curious, and forming strong opinions closes down the curiosity and learning mechanism, and I'd rather learn. Bezos can't be all bad- few people really are.

      That aside, this is pure speculation from observation: shareholders- they're the people who own your company's stock, right? Your stock value will drop in the wonderful (yes, that is sarcasm) stock market if your shareholders don't like

      • where he is being forced to close warehouses because they were not safe. That's not bad press, that's the government stepping in to maintain basic public health.

        That Bezos had to be ordered to by the French government is the clearest indication that the man is a psychopath. There is no way a man at his level is not aware of the danger of maintaining his warehouses at near 100% capacity. He is not a stupid man. This is the evidence we have to dislike and distrust Bezos. There are others (constant Union

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bobby ( 109046 )

          You might have misunderstood me. "bad press" does not mean "fake news" or some other criticism of the news media, in spite of the popularity thereof. It means the press relayed a story that could make someone look bad.

          I don't agree that Bezos is a psychopath. People far far misuse psychological terms. Regardless, you and I probably draw the line in different places. I'm okay with most of the variety of people. Governments, laws, courts, cops, prisons, etc., are all about drawing lines of where the beh

        • ...the man is a psychopath.

          As Cyndi Lauper pointed out, money changes everything.

          The current tests aren't all that good - too many false results. They're just a psychological balm that make people more comfortable about going to work, which, in turn, would allay fears of stockholders.

          Just thinking...
          If a worker tests positive, what would Amazon do? Fire the infected, and maybe the coworkers too? Then maybe they'd cordon off the exposed areas, or even close the whole place down for a few days to sterile it.
          But if/when things g

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by cusco ( 717999 )

            Amazon's COVID-19 blog. They're not a healthcare company, so it's considerably more difficult for them to adapt to a widespread health issue than something like a hospital would.

            https://blog.aboutamazon.com/c... [aboutamazon.com]

            . What we are doing for employees

            Our top concern is ensuring the health and safety of our employees. We made over 150 process updates—from enhanced cleaning and social distancing measures to piloting new efforts like disinfectant fog in a New York fulfillment cente

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Writing letters to shareholders when you have billions in the bank?

      You do realize that even though he's CEO of the company he isn't King, right? If he arbitrarily decides to spend a billion dollars getting all employees tested regularly and he doesn't have shareholder backing they can remove him. The wealth that he has (which isn't in the bank BTW, he has to sell stock or other holdings to make it liquid) does not belong to Amazon, and there are rather strict rules at what he can spend on the company.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        Writing letters to shareholders when you have billions in the bank?

        You do realize that even though he's CEO of the company he isn't King, right? If he arbitrarily decides to spend a billion dollars getting all employees tested regularly and he doesn't have shareholder backing they can remove him.

        Oh, wow. Big deal. So he can sell his shares and buy, I don't know, Africa or something. Caring about this sort of mundane shit is what normal people want to stop having to do. This sad sack is doing it for fun, or something. It's pathetic.

    • his own personal wealth over the health and safety of his employees he wouldn't have been able to become the richest man in the world. Successful CEOs are going to tend to be psychopaths because doing good is never going to be as profitable as exploiting people.

      There's no getting around that, meaning we need more regulations (and we need to adjust them constantly) to control that impulse.

  • Since this is a trillion dollar issue, what needs to happen is that some type of rapid biological virus scanner is going to have to be developed. The current methods are woefully inadequate and do not scale up at all.

    How exactly that happens, I don't know. But screw the space program and every other optional program on the books, everyone needs to drop everything and start working on this.

    Our for profit medical system probably isn't going to do it, but since we see what it looks like to blow up the world ec

    • what needs to happen is that some type of rapid biological virus scanner is going to have to be developed

      Because a fifteen minute test is too long?

      the world can probably all put their heads together on this and come up with something that works cheap, fast, and reliably. It really needs to be something an individual can afford, so we can all just test ourselves.

      Helpful hint, the more people who "put their heads together" on something typically drives the cost up. Also, people fuck up simple things all of the time and things that engineers have spent countless hours trying to ensure that there isn't a way to fuck it up. I mean, I've literally seen people walk smack into a set of closed doors with a two foot signage on it saying, "WRONG WAY". You seriously think that anyone would be okay with "test yourself" whatever for

      • Because a fifteen minute test is too long?

        Yes. Multiply that by 330 million people. Explain to me why, in a First World country, it is taking days and weeks to get test results back.

        That's just unacceptable, but if you guys don't mind blowing up the world economy every time this happens, oh well.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by gtall ( 79522 )

          "Explain to me why, in a First World country, it is taking days and weeks to get test results back."

          Trump and his inept excuse for an administration. They have no plan, they are incapable of developing on. And if handed one, they wouldn't know how to implement it.

        • It is not a serial task, but a massively parallel one

          All that needs to happen is for the trump administration to STOP preventing people from getting tested

        • Yes. Multiply that by 330 million people

          For obvious reasons, not instantaneously, so if you're going to multiple by 330 million people you also need to divide by the number of tests you can complete in the time span for the disease to reasonably spread to 330 million. Which at the current going rate for the United States is ~five months. Which I think you can understand that there's a lot of 15 minute blocks in five months. Additionally you need to account for concurrency (number of tests that can be ran per batch in the system) and the fact t

          • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • For obvious reasons, not instantaneously, so if you're going to multiple by 330 million people you also need to divide by the number of tests you can complete in the time span for the disease to reasonably spread to 330 million.

            Your scenario is using current testing methods. If we were really going to do what South Korea did, test everyone and isolate the sick, you would have to have multiple, multiple tests over these same periods. What I'm saying is, what we are doing is not working and can't really work for us. Some new tech is going to have to be developed. This is our bottleneck, and it is endangering national security. I'm not expecting magic, but I think the US can do WAY better than this, if we put our minds to it. Somethi

            • What I'm saying is, what we are doing is not working

              The important part is that it is an US issue, not a science issue. We don't need new science, we need to be a better country.

              but I think the US can do WAY better than this, if we put our minds to it

              No. Our minds won't go there if there is no massive profit to be made from it. That is the United States.

              Science can't fix political problems, and every single issue we're having is a political issue.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      The space program is what has given us any hope of solving the Sars-CoV-2 problem (advances in computing necessary for modeling the virus proteins, etc.). The space program is also peanuts, $22.6 Billion.

      If you want real money, then you either need the Fed. to issue bonds (like how the $2.2 Trillion is getting funded as well as the yearly $1 Trillion deficit) or you need to raid the SS and Medicare trust funds. This last won't work because the only thing in those funds is I.O.U.s, i.e., U.S. gov. bonds. You

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by cusco ( 717999 )

        There is one other untapped source of funds, the bottomless pit of military spending. There is absolutely no reason why we need to spend more than the next eight countries combined (most of whom are allies) on something that contributes nothing to the betterment of the country or the world. The Pentagram (not counting the Black Budget or intel agencies) gets 100 times what NASA does, and returns nothing but broken soldiers and less security.

        • The reason we spend more than the next eight countries combined is so that any one of them doesn't look at the situation and unilaterally decide to impose a different set of policies on the world via military solution.

          I'm not saying I necessarily agree with US policy decisions, especially as some have been downright devastating, but I think I prefer US global policy over, say, China's or Russia's global policy. But if the EU (e.g.) wants to step up to the plate and spend more than the next 8 countries comb

  • I get the logic in this. But something creeps me out about my employer knowing about me than I know anout me.

    I get a little concerned about things like this. Almost like forced drug testing. Not to say I specifically support the use of drugs or alcohol, but their is something wrong with assuming every employee is an addict, much like its wrong for walmart to assume every customer is a thief. (They recently started mandatory bag / reciept checking for every customer to leave the store).

    Sure all that, what

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by guruevi ( 827432 )

      A company can't force drug or COVID testing in the same vein that they don't have to employ you either. Pregnancy testing would be wrong because it would only impact a certain class of people and pregnancy in and of itself doesn't affect your safety or performance. Any tests would have to be uniform (even though most "random" drug testing is done on males).

      Same goes for Wal-Mart, after you purchased the goods, they can't force you to stay and check your bags, that would be wrongful imprisonment (unless you

      • Yeah I see your point. I understand for example it wouldn't make sense for pregnancy testing, because it would be an obvious prejudice (If that is the word I meant to use). But I meant from a different perspective, you couldn't test a Male for pregnancy because he couldn't get pregnant. I meant more from the perspective of systematically making business decisions for financial reasons that aren't in the best interests of the employees.

        So let's call pregnancy tests a bad example. What if employees were s

        • and i don't think their are legal grounds

          Second time in two posts that you used "their" instead of "there". I'm curious as to why - auto-complete? Illiteracy?

          • Hey, legitimate question!

            Yes I was posting on my crappy (older) Android phone and not scrolling back up to read it to myself. It does auto-replace things it thinks I meant. Laziness or sloppiness or something.. =)

            That said, I was never really a star when it comes to grammar.

    • drug testing for POT is bad unless it's an safety thing. Well the NHL is OK with pot use.

    • (They recently started mandatory bag / reciept checking for every customer to leave the store).

      They recently radically increased the number of self-checkout lanes in stores, and are using self-checkout kiosks from a new vendor. They're checking to see if their loss rates have changed.

      Actually in my store they only check people who have unbagged items. If you're carrying everything in checkout bags, they wave you through.

      I expect they will stop checking after a while, when they have enough data. They don't want to pay someone standing at the exit if they don't have to. The elderly "greeters" went

  • Top 20 pathogens (Score:3)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Thursday April 16, 2020 @10:37AM (#59955008)

    We should be routinely testing anyone with a fever for the top 20 pathogens and other testable diseases. If it were widely deployed it would be dirt cheap to do.

    • We should be routinely testing anyone with a fever for the top 20 pathogens and other testable diseases. If it were widely deployed it would be dirt cheap to do.

      ~backslashdot

      So, you have access to people relating Chinese policies. Maybe you were unaware of your source's information. I am, however, aware.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      The far-right and far-left would freak out about "invasion of privacy" or some such. Actually, that might be fun to watch, we should do it if only for the entertainment value.

    • We should be routinely testing anyone with a fever for the top 20 pathogens and other testable diseases. If it were widely deployed it would be dirt cheap to do.

      We already do that if you show up to the doctor. If you show up to the doctor with a fever, they run the appropriate tests until they have a
      definitive diagnoses. The problem is people who are asymptomatic or that stay home and don't get tested.

      We might need to just test everyone. If we could get the tests for $1 a piece, testing everyone in the USA every week for the next 18 months
      would only cost $25 billion (330M * 78 weeks * $1) which would be a cheap price to pay to get the economy working again.

      • No they don't do that. They test for one thing, then another etc. it takes days/weeks depending on what you have.

    • Wasn't that sort of what Theranos was founded on? Guessing the actual tech might me harder than we lay-people would know.

  • Bezos is avoiding responsibility (Score:3)

    by bagofbeans ( 567926 ) on Thursday April 16, 2020 @11:06AM (#59955076)

    Bezos should set up his employees to be at low risk of spreading the virus. That means protective gaer and distancing. That's not how his operations run efficiently, so he's trying to not do this but shift blame onto lack of testing kit.

    Testing is far less important than prevention.

    • Wrong. We need both. Theoretically prevention sounds good but practically itâ(TM)s very difficult to implement without causing amazon to go bankrupt (amazonâ(TM)s profit margins from product shipping and sales isnâ(TM)t very high). Masks arenâ(TM)t 100% protective. Even distance isnâ(TM)t. We arenâ(TM)t even 100% sure if the virus is aerosolizable, similar to measles, which means it can linger and spread in the air for hours.

      • Wrong. We need both. Theoretically prevention sounds good but practically itâ(TM)s very difficult to implement without causing amazon to go bankrupt (amazonâ(TM)s profit margins from product shipping and sales isnâ(TM)t very high). Masks arenâ(TM)t 100% protective. Even distance isnâ(TM)t. We arenâ(TM)t even 100% sure if the virus is aerosolizable, similar to measles, which means it can linger and spread in the air for hours.

        Ahh...a speculator working from a phone...

        What you wish to give emphasis has taken place in Taiwan and S. Korea to the greatest effect. What you fail to recognize is prevention is cheap and testing requires the management of resources over time.

    • Testing is far less important than prevention.

      ~bagofbeans

      Indeed. As in the post before yours, you are describing a policy that has been China's from the outset of Hubei's collapse, both in its enforced quarantines of Wuhan and advisory quarantines throughout the nation.

      The potential for western nations to follow China's example was compromised by framed reportage of China's supposedly authoritarian ruthlessness treatment of its people as well as parroting western authority's use of non-technical "scare" terms like "lockdown" to achieve a binary vocabulary of ab

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Actually they're doing what they can. Here's Amazon's COVID-19 blog.
      https://blog.aboutamazon.com/c... [aboutamazon.com]

      1. What we are doing for employees

      Our top concern is ensuring the health and safety of our employees. We made over 150 process updates—from enhanced cleaning and social distancing measures to piloting new efforts like disinfectant fog in a New York fulfillment center.
      We distributed personal protective gear, such as masks for our employees, and

    • thank you for this information i used it in my [kaffeketab.ir] portal.

  • People that start yelling "Hey! We need more of this!" Tend to not be the people doing anything.

    Not news.

  • It is an acknowledged fact that antibody testing specifically is the fastest path to scientifically and mathematically getting to a new economy after the coronavirus. But three complications.

    One reinfection. After Sars-nCov2 treatment recovery remains an enigma. Either false negatives in the test itself are letting slip through the test gauntlet contagion, immunity is not imbued as inoculation against COVID infection or mutation is occurring.

    Two mutation. So. Korea confirms that documented cases of virus m

    • Your math is probably wrong. Right now you can get tests that take a few hours results, and plenty of companies are working on ones that based on other similar tests would take around 15 mins.
      The problem with the antibody testing is that you will be contagious for over 1 week before anti-bodies start showing up.
  • The experts have repeatedly said that testing does not matter except as tracking statistics. There is no treatment for the virus and knowing you are positive does nothing. Their advice whether you have covid19, the flu, or another disease is the same: stay home and have limited contact with others and if it gets bad enough then go to a doctor to get fluids or put on a ventilator. If you test one day and have negative it also means nothing because you could then have the virus the next day. Unless you test

    • So you don't understand modern medicine, we see.

    • It is a matter of context.

      At the point we are now, the argument that mass testing as a positive health measure is not so valuable has merit. The numbers we have are only indicators of what happened in the recent past, and are nearly useless for taking positive action in the immediate future. I get that.

      But where we want to be is to have an open economy again. To achieve that safely, we need have fewer carriers, AND to be able to quickly identify most of the people spreading infection, and find those most

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • He's only saying/doing this after the French Government shutdown one of his locations due to improper procedures, https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15... [cnn.com]
  • Billionaires days are numbered. Good riddance.

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