The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Postal Service’s toughest deliveries
U.S. Postal Service’s mission to deliver 500 million coronavirus test kits has cast the agency in an unprecedented role in the nation’s pandemic response.
For the Postal Service, the challenge comes as COVID-19 infections have peaked within its ranks and its network is under immense strain.
Online orders have already started rolling for the free rapid tests, and the agency has hired thousands of seasonal workers and converted more than 40 facilities into ad hoc fulfillment centers.
It’s expected to be the largest disaster-relief mobilization in the postal service’s 247-year history.
The stakes for the country — and the Postal Service — could hardly be higher. Americans are still struggling to access at-home coronavirus tests as the omicron variant is driving caseloads near record highs in parts of the country.
A good outcome could help the Postal Service win funding for a much-needed fleet of delivery trucks and restructure its massive debt burden.
Success, though, is far from assured, postal officials privately concede.
The program requires the agency to take on entirely new duties and a fresh public face in the fight against the coronavirus. Testkit processing snags, IT failures or delivery issues could set the agency’s reputation back decades.
And rising workforce quarantines and isolations have already affected mail service. On-time delivery rates for firstclass mail fell to 84.5% the week of Jan. 14, the agency’s worst score since the pandemic began and well below its 95% target.
On a recent Friday, 19,742 postal workers were in quarantine after a positive test or exposure to the virus. It is the largest contingent to miss work since the pandemic began, according to the American Postal Workers Union.
What’s more, health officials at postal installations are so overwhelmed by employee reports of new cases they’re unable to track and trace close contacts of newly infected individuals
— or authorize those who have recovered to return to work. The issues are compounded, local union officials say, by other workers refusing to call in sick out of a fear of discipline.
Although the agency is set up to move billions of pieces of mail — letters, advertisements, ballots, parcels, even cremated remains — it has never managed its own offthe-shelf inventory or developed this kind of consumer-fulfillment operation.
“Even if you know how to do it, it’s never been done before. A lot can go wrong,” said one senior postal official. “But if we can pull it off, wow.”