On Thursday, Dave Clark, Amazon's senior vice president of worldwide operations, wrote a blog post defending the online retail giant's handling of the ongoing coronavirus crisis and praising the company's employees for their efforts.

He also said Amazon respects employees' rights to demonstrate against the company.

The conflicting messages underscore how difficult it has been for Amazon to navigate the turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which has already killed tens of thousands of people worldwide.

The pandemic reached a grim milestone on Tuesday as infections hit 1 million cases, including several Amazon employees.

Following a handful of worker strikes at Amazon warehouses and Whole Foods stores across the country this week, Clark said Thursday the company supports demonstrators' legal right to protest and understands employees' concerns about risking their safety coming into work.

He said that these strikes have occurred at "a very small number of sites and represent a few hundred employees out of hundreds of thousands.".

Clark said these protesters aren't afforded "a blanket immunity against bad actions, particularly those that endanger the health, and potentially the lives, of colleagues." Though he didn't identify a specific individual, Clark was referencing Christian Smalls, a warehouse worker in Staten Island who was fired on Monday after breaking a company-mandated quarantine because he had been in close contact with another employee who tested positive for the virus.