To be an essential worker right now is to constantly be at-risk. With unemployment at record highs, companies like Amazon are hiring tens of thousands of workers while others test positive for COVID-19 and face constant uncertainty when it comes to exposure. Being a delivery worker now, while in increased demand comes with increased risk.
That's not even considering the risk to the consumer. The novel coronavirus can hang out on cardboard for up to 24 hours according to preliminary testing. So yeah, wash your hands after grabbing that package off the porch. There is an alternative to the human toll of the essential delivery and it comes in the form of something we've been talking about for a while now — drones.
When we first heard about Amazon's delivery drones, we had mixed feelings about them. Did we really want a Bezos-led army of autonomous drones filling the skies to deliver our less-than-essential goods? Now that Amazon has shifted its priorities to essential goods only (though it is letting some non-essential sellers back in the warehouse) the idea of a drone delivery over a possibly-infected delivery driver.
