SEATTLE – With an eye toward possibly testing all of its employees for coronavirus, Amazon said Thursday it is building a testing lab.

“A team of Amazonians with a variety of skills – from research scientists and program managers to procurement specialists and software engineers – have moved from their normal day jobs onto a dedicated team to work on this initiative,” the Seattle-based company said in a corporate blog post. “We have begun assembling the equipment we need to build our first lab and hope to start testing small numbers of our front line employees soon.”

Amazon, like other employers with lots of people still coming in to work, is scrambling to update its processes and procedures to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus within its facilities.

This week, it began screening the temperature of each person arriving for work and distributing face masks. Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, sporting a mask, had his temperature checked as he entered a fulfillment center in a video the company shared Wednesday night on social media.

But with asymptomatic transmission of coronavirus, even symptom screening will not be enough to slow the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

“A next step might be regular testing of all employees, including those showing no symptoms,” Amazon said in announcing its testing lab. “Regular testing on a global scale across all industries would both help keep people safe and help get the economy back up and running.”

Amazon has offered its hourly employees up to two weeks of paid leave if they are diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed in quarantine. Some employees have reported difficulty in obtaining the paid leave due to bureaucratic hurdles and a lack of access to testing.