Google Spends $150 Million To Create Awareness About COVID-19 Vaccine

Google is planning to allocate $150 million to educate people about the benefits of COVID-19 vaccine, access the availability of vaccines, and to counter misinformation against COVID-19.

On Monday, the search engine giant Google said that it will give $150 million to educate the people on the benefits of COVID-19 vaccine, help counter misinformation, and ensure access to vaccines are available for underserved communities.

Out of the $150 million, $100 million will be provided as advertisement grants to the CDC Foundation, the World Health Organization (WHO), and other non-profit institutions spearheading the global vaccination drive. The remaining $50 million will be given for public health agencies that offer vaccine-related content and information for the underprivileged.

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‘Google is planning to allocate $150 million to educate people about the benefits of COVID-19 vaccine, access the availability of vaccines, and to counter misinformation against COVID-19.’
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Chief executive of Google and Alphabet Sundar Pichai said, “We’re providing more than $150 million to promote vaccine education and equitable distribution and making it easier to find locally relevant information, including when and where to get the vaccine. We’ll also be opening up Google spaces to serve as vaccination sites as needed.”

Through its Ad Grants Crisis Relief programme, Google assists more than 100 government and global non-governmental agencies in running critical public service health programmes. In order to fight the misinformation about the vaccines, Google’s information panels on Search have been expanded to over 40 countries and dozens of languages. Over the next few weeks, support for more languages will be provided.

People can easily search when they are eligible to get vaccines and Google will also start showing state and regional distribution information on Search. Another initiative will be made available on Google and YouTube called ‘Get The Facts’ that provides authoritative information about vaccines.

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Google searches for ‘vaccine near me’ have increased by five times since the start of the year. This indicates that there is a need for locally relevant information on vaccines. In order to deliver vaccines in a timely manner, healthcare organizations, pharmacies, logistics companies, and public sector institutions use Google Cloud and their other technologies.

New York and North Carolina use Google’s Intelligent Vaccine Impact Platform to manage distribution and forecast where vaccines, personal protective equipment (PPE) and hospital staff are required.

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In order to provide accurate information to the public to prevent COVID-19 from spreading, Google had previously allocated $250 million in Ad Grants to help WHO and more than 100 government agencies.

To alert people when they came in contact with someone infected with the virus, contact tracing apps were created by public health agencies. To help develop contact tracing apps, Google also joined hands with Apple to build exposure notifications technology.

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Source-Medindia