At least one employee at an Amazon facility in Teterboro tested positive for the coronavirus, but other employees weren’t notified until more than a week after one person had tested positive, workers confirmed.

During announcements made Thursday and Friday, workers were told that at least one employee had tested positive for the coronavirus and had last worked March 18, according to two workers at the Amazon facility who spoke to NJ Advance Media Saturday and requested anonymity to protect their jobs.

One of the workers said management announced Friday morning that two employees at the warehouse had tested positive. Workers were told that Amazon had tracked and notified those with whom the infected employee had come in contact.

Amazon confirmed Saturday that one person, not two, at the facility had tested positive for the coronavirus and would not return to work. The person would self-quarantine for 14 days, with the company paying the person for their sick time.

Amazon did not say how long it had been between any positive tests and when other employees were first notified.

The company said it has implemented a series of preventative health measures for employees including practicing social distancing within its facilities, requiring employees to stay home and seek medical attention if they are feeling unwell and more frequent and intense cleaning of all sites.

“We’re continuing to monitor the situation in our facilities and corporate offices, and we are taking proactive measures to protect employees and associates who have been in contact with anyone who has been diagnosed or becomes ill,” Amazon said in a statement

Workers at the Amazon facility have not been given protective masks to wear, said one employee, as panic-buying of the masks caused a back order and priority for any remaining protective gear goes to healthcare workers.

“What we were told is if you’re healthy and you’re fine, you don’t really need a mask,” the worker said.

Additionally, workers at the 617,000 square foot facility work in different areas from shift to shift, making it next to impossible to accurately track who an infected person may have come in contact with, one worker said.

“The question was asked: ‘You know the people who worked around that person, but did you know if they went to the bathroom and who was in the bathroom at the time that they had walked in?’" the worker said. “And they said ‘No, because we don’t have cameras in the bathroom.’”

The Teterboro facility is in Bergen County, the epicenter of the outbreak in New Jersey. Since the state’s first confirmed case of the virus, a Fort Lee healthcare worker, Bergen County has continued to be the hardest hit, with 1,838 cases as of Saturday afternoon.

“People have families,” said one worker. "I know a couple of coworkers that just don’t have their husbands and wives, but they also have their parents living with them and they don’t want to bring home that to their parents. And people are freaked out about that.”

The company said that all employees diagnosed with coronavirus or placed in quarantine will receive up to two weeks of additional time off, to ensure they can get healthy without worrying about lost pay. Amazon is also offering all its hourly employees unlimited unpaid time off through April.

But many workers can’t afford to stay home, even amid fears of a pandemic.

Several workers walked out of work the same day they were told of the employee who had tested positive, but many others are staying to receive extra income and work overtime, one worker said. Instead of time and a half for any overtime hours, Amazon is now paying double, the worker said.

Employees at at least 10 Amazon warehouses around the country have tested positive for the coronavirus. The company is one of the major retailers that is hiring during the pandemic. On Wednesday, Amazon, which has 11 facilities in New Jersey, confirmed that an employee at the Edison facility had tested positive for coronavirus and was under quarantine.

As the pandemic worsens, workers at the Teterboro warehouse are faced with a difficult decision: continue going to work and risk getting sick. Or stay home and risk losing a much-needed paycheck.

It’s a decision one worker said they’ll have to make in the following days.

“I’ll try to work as much as I can,” said one worker. “If it starts trickling down where people are coming and coming in more, then I’m going to have to reassess and say ‘No, I’m not going to risk my life going there if they haven’t done something about it.’ That’s the scary part.”

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Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon.