"According to the company’s previous statements, the infected co-worker in question last reported for work on 11 March. (...) Smalls said Amazon did not send him home until 28 March, three weeks after the exposure."
Why do you feel the need to ask this question? What ridiculous conspiracy theory are you concocting that somehow gives an ulterior motive to this situation?
And he seems to have switched from worrying about his safety to campaigning against Amazon. Why should anybody be forced to employ somebody who has made it their job to damage their employers reputation?
Isn't following unreasonable orders by definition you know unreasonable? I mean if your boss told you to jump of a bridge that seems unreasonable right? And you would still do it? After all he is your boss and you don't want to get fired, right?
He was in the middle of organizing a movement for covid related safety improvements after multiple cases of exposure. Dropping that for two weeks would put him back at zero and he would return to the same risk he tried to have resolved. The order itself doesn't cause the risk, but it prevents an existing risk from being resolved.
Its closer to working on an active train track knowing that the train might come any time. Of course he could have taken two weeks vacation, but he would just be back on the same train track with the same uncertainty of when it would be his turn to be hit by the covid train.