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> They should shut down until they can get face masks for all employees and make them mandatory. The article says they won't arrive until next week. And they should really be using some alternative fabric mask, rather than surgical masks which should go to healthcare workers.

And all the people ordering from Amazon? I would assume that on the whole, Amazon is better than every member of the public physically going out and shopping at a store.




If they required masks for all supply chain jobs right now, most places would have to shutdown due to the lack of masks. People would go hungry. We need guaranteed supply of masks and hand sanitizer at reasonable prices. This where the government could step in.


Masks can be made from cotton fabric and still be quite (~70% effective) (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258525804_Testing_t...).

You can improvise a mask from paper towel and tissues that is ~90% effective (https://www.bkreader.com/2020/03/07/heres-a-diy-way-to-make-...)


And they get it from...?


They could force companies to produce it.


Hand sanitizer will be solved in a couple weeks. Every single distillery in my small town is pivoting to making it, as well as Bacardi and others, and I know this is happening everywhere.

N95 masks though, those can’t exactly be ramped up and made in your shop.


This crisis we are in has doctors wearing halloween masks so there are people making masks at home. They're not N95 rated in the slightest, but it's better than reusing a mask to see a non-covid patient after seeing a probably-covid patient.


Source of doctors wearing Halloween masks?


how about doctors wearing sex shop costumes? https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/28/medical-fetish-site-donates-e...


I thought a fair amount of the contact work was done by robots, at least for the inner packaged items.

The virus apparently doesn't do great on cardboard; you've got a day or so of transit time for it to wear down...


Amazon has sponsored a picking challenge for a few years now, but I'm not aware of this level of automation being deployed in production. The last I saw, a Kiva robot would bring a shelf of items to a human picker, who transferred an item from a bin to a box.


The virus apparently doesn't do great on cardboard; you've got a day or so of transit time for it to wear down...

Assuming the guy who brought the package to your door isn't infected.




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