‘Every Day Is Frightening’: Working For Walmart Amid Covid-19 Outbreak
Workers at Walmart are working from home to protect their health amid the coronavirus outbreak. The company announced this week it had closed over 15,000 stores and reduced its workforce by 20 percent.
The coronavirus has caused chaos at Walmart stores around the world, forcing staff to work from home. Now the company has announced that it might have to close more of its stores.
Correspondent Lauren Gambino reports.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to include information from a statement from American Chemistry Laboratory, which tested samples of the liquid makeup on employees. The lab confirmed that the chemicals in the products were safe.
On Monday, the nation’s largest retailer temporarily closed five U.S. stores and plans to open three more, according to reports. However, they would be temporary closures to ensure they are not needed to prevent an outbreak or the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by a virus first detected in the Wuhan, China area.
On Wednesday, the company announced it had shuttered all 5,300 of its stores, including those in the Seattle area and at the headquarters in Bentonville.
And in a sign of how hard the pandemic has hit even the most iconic brands, Walmart announced on Tuesday it might need to shut down stores that do not meet strict safety requirements. It has more than 6,000 stores in the U.S.
As employees were working from home and store shelves emptied, an employee at Walmart’s Bentonville headquarters began to spread her infectious germs on her fingers and then touched her face, her arm and her eyes, according to the American Chemistry Laboratory.
It was during the coronavirus outbreak that American Chemistry Laboratory discovered its test kits to screen for the virus turned on and tested positive, Gambino reports.
It turned out the tests had been improperly maintained and that one batch of these tests had been stored for 20 years and showed signs of contamination.
The lab contacted the company on Wednesday and learned that they may have to stop using them all, according to the company that made