Coronavirus Update: Amazon Pantry Temporarily Shut Down To Handle Previous Orders Due To COVID-19 Pandemic

If you are at home, practicing self-isolation and ordering food online, you might not get your order through Amazon Prime Pantry for some time. The company has halted all new orders through this service, which specializes in household items before they clear previous orders.

Amazon’s Prime Pantry website put up a notice stating that the Pantry is temporarily shut down as they are busy restocking.

“Due to high order volumes, Pantry is not accepting new orders at this time. This means that items listed as “Ships & Sold from Pantry” cannot be added to your cart. We apologize for this inconvenience and are working with our partners to get these items back in stock as quickly as possible.

You can still shop for household staples and other essentials through the following stores: Fresh, Whole Foods, Grocery or Household products. At this time, due to high demand, our other stores may have limited availability and delivery,” read the notice. It remains unclear when Amazon will resume services through Prime Pantry.

Meanwhile, Amazon confirmed its first case of an hourly employee with coronavirus in New York, The Seattle Times reported. The company revealed that a worker in a Queens, New York delivery station had tested positive for coronavirus.

The station was closed temporarily to ensure deep sanitization. The associates were given full pay and sent home.

On March 16, Dave Clark wrote in a blog that Amazon will hire 100,000 new full and part-time employees for positions across the U.S. in its fulfillment center and delivery network. The new hiring process is implemented “to meet the surge in demand from people relying on Amazon’s service during this stressful time, particularly those most vulnerable to being out in public.”

According to John Hopkins University’s interactive COVID-19 map, the coronavirus death toll has surpassed 10,000. The number of positive COVID-19 cases has reached 244,517. The World Health Organization is working closely with COVID-19 test kit manufacturers and the private sector to improve the supply of the test kits.