Google has launched an initiative to raise more than $ 150 million to promote education and equitable distribution of coronavirus vaccines, the company announced today. It will make some Google facilities – buildings, car parks and open spaces – available as vaccination clinics, with plans to first open premises in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Kirkland, Washington and New York City, and expand nationally as vaccines become available. wider available.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet, says in a blog post that the company will donate $ 100 million in advertising grants to the CDC Foundation, the World Health Organization and other non-profit organizations. It also plans to invest $ 50 million in partnerships with public health agencies to provide vaccine information to underserved communities.
“Our efforts will focus strongly on equitable access to vaccines,” Pichai wrote in the post. “Early data in the U.S. showed that over-affected populations, especially coloreds and people in rural communities, do not receive the same doses as other groups.”
Google has already allocated $ 5 million in grants to organizations such as the Satcher Health Leadership Institute of the Morehouse School of Medicine, which focuses on addressing racial and geographic differences in access to vaccines.
Google will also expand the vaccination information panels in its search results and start showing state and regional distribution information in the search, so that people can see when they are eligible to receive a vaccine. Google launched the vaccination information panels in the UK last month, with information on each individual vaccine. This is similar to the information panels used to share facts about COVID-19 and the location of testing centers.
The company says searches for “vaccines near me” have increased fivefold since the beginning of the year. In the coming weeks, COVID-19 vaccination sites will be available to search, and maps for Arizona, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, and more states and states will be added soon. The search results contain information about whether appointments or referrals from a doctor are necessary, whether there is a drive-through option and whether access to specific people is restricted. Google says it is working with VaccineFinder.org, government agencies, retail pharmacies and other authoritative sources to gather the information on vaccination sites.
The initial introduction of coronavirus vaccines in the US has been slow and confusing as states have tried to coordinate plans for appointments with little federal guidance.
“Taking billions of people’s vaccines will not be easy, but it is one of the most important problems we will solve in our lives,” Pichai wrote in the post.