10 things to know about Amazon and the coronavirus

As the coronavirus continues to spread, Amazon has been on the forefront of travel restrictions and remote work. However, it has also continued to make announcements and partnerships over the past two weeks.

Here are 10 things to know about Amazon and the coronavirus.

1. On Feb. 28, Amazon restricted employee travel in the U.S. due to the coronavirus outbreak, asking them to postpone any travel through the end of April. The company had restricted employee travel to China in January and asked employees traveling back from a restricted company to work from home for two weeks.

2. On March 3, Amazon confirmed at least one employee at the company's Seattle location was quarantined after testing positive for COVID-19. The employee became symptomatic on Feb. 25 and had not re-entered the facility after leaving work that day.

3. Amazon Web Services decided on March 3 not to travel to the HIMSS annual event, which was canceled a few days later. Amazon wasn't alone in this decision; Change Healthcare, Microsoft, Salesforce and Meditech all decided not to travel ahead of the cancellation.

4. Amazon is among the retail and tech giants combatting price gouging on hand sanitizers, face masks and other protective gear that could prevent the spread of coronavirus. At one point earlier this month, Amazon had face masks listed 582 percent above retail price, and later removed more than a million products due to violations of its price-gouging policies or products that made false claims. Walmart and eBay reported similar price-gouging issues, according to a March 3 report.

5. There were more than 150 job openings related to healthcare posted on the Amazon website as of March 3, with many being part of PillPack. The company also listed more than 60 openings for onsite medical representatives, including nurses and physicians.

6. On March 3, amid the outbreak, Amazon partnered with First Databank, a database of drug and medical device information. Amazon Alexa users can now ask the voice assistant questions about drug information, including interactions and side effects.

7. Amid the coronavirus outbreak, CNBC revealed on March 6 that Amazon is working on a project to develop a vaccination for the common cold. Titled "Project Gesundheit," a small group of individuals have been working on the vaccine as part of the 100-person research and development team at Amazon, known as Grand Challenge.

8. Amazon joined Microsoft on March 9 to pledge $1 million each to the newly created COVID-19 Response Fund in the Washington Puget Sound region. At the time, there were 162 cases and 22 deaths reported in the state of Washington.

9. On March 10, Amazon announced its cashier-less convenience stores for retailers, according to Reuters. The company's Just Walk Out technology allows customers to enter a store after inserting their credit card and then select items that will be added to the shopper's virtual cart. The store bills the customer's credit card when that person leaves the store.

10. Amazon created a $5 million Neighborhood Small Business Relief Fund to provide cash grants to local and small businesses in the South Lake Union and Regrade neighborhoods that were affected by the coronavirus outbreak. The fund, created on March 10, is for businesses with 50 employees or less than $7 million in annual revenue. The company also said it would subsidize a full month's rent for tenants in buildings that it owns and continue to pay its 10,000-plus member hourly staff who work for service providers that support offices in Seattle and Bellevue in Washington during the period when the company asked employees to work from home.

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