Alphabet's Google to Donate $800M to Combat Coronavirus

Alphabet Inc.'s GOOGL Google is leaving no stone unturned to help the society in fighting the coronavirus pandemic.

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread, the rising number of infected patients calls for better infrastructure and safety for the comparatively lesser number of healthcare workers. Hospitals are grappling with the rapid spread of the virus, and shortage of medical equipment including face masks and ventilators.

Amid such a situation, Google will donate more than $800 million (645 million pounds) in funds to produce medical supplies in an effort to fight COVID-19.

As part of the donation, the company will provide $340 million in Google ad credits to small and medium businesses to help them produce medical devices and personal protective equipment in a bid to combat the growing crisis. In addition, it will offer $250 million in ad grants to the World Health Organization and many government agencies.

We believe the latest effort of Google is a positive during this coronavirus-induced global crisis. This is likely to instill investor optimism in the stock.

Alphabet Inc. Price and Consensus

Google’s Growing Endeavors

Alphabet has been making all the necessary efforts to combat this situation.

Google recently launched a website in the United States that offers information related to coronavirus symptoms, treatment and preventive remedies from the World Health Organization.

In addition, its health-care division called Verily recently launched a COVID-19 screening and testing website under Project Baseline. Notably, this particular site offers screening and potential free testing of coronavirus. The website requires users to begin with the eligibility questionnaire. Further, it asks willing users to take the test, sign a COVID-19 Public Health authorization form that allows Verily to collect their information required for the screening process.

Currently, the project is limited to California residents with special focus on Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Notably, Verily is in talks with the State of California to further expand the project to other counties.

Per Bloomberg, Verily has successfully conducted tests for around 20 people on the very first day of COVID-19 screening.

Apart from this, Alphabet’s search division Google is striving to provide coronavirus-related information that will comprise symptoms, risk factors and testing, among others, via another website that is currently at a developing stage.

We believe all these endeavors will continue to drive customer momentum and strengthen its competitive position against other companies.

Competition Intensifies

We note that competition is intensifying among tech companies in managing and preventing the society from the virus by means of their robust technologies.

Companies like Amazon AMZN, Baidu BIDU and Microsoft MSFT, among others, are taking strong measures to help government and people efficiently manage this pandemic situation.

Recently, Amazon’s cloud computing arm Amazon Web Services (AWS) collaborated with Conduent (CNDT) in a bid to manage the coronavirus pandemic in an efficient way.

In addition, Amazon announced that Whole Foods stores will dedicate an entire hour to serve only senior citizens in an attempt to keep them safe from crowd, as they are more susceptible to COVID-19 infection. Moreover, the company has recently undertaken an initiative to bolster the Same-Day Delivery program by making same-day delivery service available in the cities of Philadelphia, Phoenix, Orlando and Dallas for Prime members.

Meanwhile, Baidu has allowed access to its Linearfold algorithm to scientific and medical teams for the secondary structure prediction of Covid-19 RNA sequence.

Microsoft has unveiled a COVID-19 tracker tool that offers up-to-date infection statistics of every affected country on the tracker. Moreover, the tool provides access to various coronavirus-related articles and other information.

Nevertheless, Google’s strengthening initiatives to fight against coronavirus are likely to keep it ahead of the pack.

Zacks Rank

Alphabet currently carriesa Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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