Apr 29, 2020 3 min read

Neither snow nor rain nor coronavirus will prevent the U.S. Postal Service from delivering on its creed, Karen Mazurkiewicz vowed.

USPS and its delivery brethren, and the public they serve, cannot bear a slowdown at the moment. Not with the mounting amount of consumer items to be shipped.

“With more people showing reluctance to go out, we’ve seen a huge uptick of package deliveries. It’s like holiday volumes,” the Buffalo-based postal spokeswoman said.

“The package situation is unprecedented in April, but our employees are doing incredible things. They’re making deliveries six, seven days a week.

“Everything is different, but actually the same in what we do.”

Four months removed from December, employees of the Postal Service, United Parcel Service, FedEx, Amazon and other carriers feel as if they are toiling at their peak time, minus the figgy pudding. So much of the general public is homebound, leaving roadways largely to delivery people to navigate through the deadly COVID-19 that imperils them as well. Yet they keep on trucking, literally.

Fending off the virus is not an easy endeavor for a large shipping company or agency. USPS has 600,000 employees and more than 30,000 post offices nationwide. “It’s quite a task keeping everyone protected,” Mazurkiewicz said. Yet, as of Monday, the agency’s safety initiatives appeared to be effective. Although 1,473 workers had tested positive – a seemingly high number – the reality is that figure represents a minuscule two-tenths of 1% who are on the payroll.

Transporting mail may be a minimal hazard at worst. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is “no evidence” that the virus is spread by mail. Yet there are other hazards.

“We hear that in some cases, people are so starved for interaction, they run toward our carriers, wanting to embrace them,” Mazurkiewicz said. “They have to remind people to keep six feet away.

“And because kids and so many parents are home, more dogs are out. More doors and gates are open. That has created a summer challenge in April.”

So it has been for UPS, a global company that employs 362,000 in the United States. A spokesman said the firm “is not in a position to do interviews at this time,” but provided a list of protocols it is following, including: intensive cleaning and disinfecting facilities, equipment and vehicles; social distancing; adding space between work stations; and not requiring a customer to sign for packages when they are delivered.

Not all of its 750,000 global employees transport goods, but Amazon is a major transporter as well. It has had COVID-19 outbreaks at more than a dozen facilities.

According to The Hill, an online news site, workers from several corporations – including Amazon, Walmart and FedEx – are planning a walkout Friday to secure better health and safety standards and hazard pay while employed during the pandemic.

In that story, The Hill cited a report from The Intercept, another online news source, that workers from Instacart, Target and Whole Foods also would participate.