PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) is in short supply for the entire United States, as evidenced by the heartbreaking lack of equipment for medical workers across the United States.
Given the fact that you need to make personal contact with someone or something they've touched, then touching your own face. It seems to me that short of shutting down Amazon facilities, there is absolutely nothing more Amazon can really do at this time.
Their incentives are currently perverse, and encourage employees to show up sick - work and take on an unknown risk of being infected in exchange for a $2 raise and double overtime, stay home without pay, or get infected and get paid leave.
Shutting down and "cleaning" will mean the entire distribution center has to close. Since once someone has a confirmed case, you can bet they spread it to many other people.
Furthermore, I would presume at this point, you're more likely to get COVID-19 from going to the grocery store or the door handle to your apartment building, than working at an Amazon distribution center.
At some point, we as a society have to determine a new path forward, our current path is unsustainable given that likely 70-80% of the population has or will contract COVID-19. Multi-month shutdowns aren't going to be saving any lives at this point. We have done about as much as we can to "flatten the curve" and hopefully prevent some portion of deaths from hospitals being overrun which they already are since every bit of data we've seen from this virus has been delayed.
It's almost as if these things aren't really determined by the impartial, invisible hand of the market at all.
As an Amazon FC employee, I follow several Facebook and Twitter accounts related to this, and I've heard many claims by employees of facilities not taking any action when the first case (or first few cases) are confirmed - including telling employees. Their policy seems to be to assume their existing contingencies, like social distancing and hand sanitizers, are sufficient even with active spread within the facility, and to continue business as usual until forced to do otherwise.
The article is accurate so far as I can tell. Amazon is unnecessarily risking their employee's health.