Google Offers Its Office Space For Use As COVID-19 Vaccination Clinics
Google has offered to lend a hand in speeding up the vaccine distribution process by offering its offices as vaccination sites.
The company is partnering with the public sector and the health care network One Medical to transform the tech giant’s buildings, parking lots and other spaces across California, the state of Washington and New York into vaccine centers, the company’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, announced Monday.
“We recognize that getting vaccines to people is a complex problem to solve, and we’re committed to doing our part,” Pichai said in a statement.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc., held $39.9B in real estate assets globally as of September 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported. Google planned to expand its real estate holdings by $10B in 2020, according to the Silicon Valley Business Journal.
Among its 2020 buys was the $40M purchase of a site in Kirkland, Washington, listed among the areas that have already been slated as a location for vaccination distribution collaboration in the blog post. Properties in the New York City, San Francisco Bay and Los Angeles areas will be included as well.
In New York City alone, the company holds 4.4M SF, according to Commercial Property Executive, including its 2.8M SF East Coast headquarters at 111 Eighth Ave. and the Chelsea Market building.
A lack of non-medical private-public partnerships early on in the distribution process and a decentralized mobilization effort nationwide have led to a less-than-successful initial vaccine rollout, health and logistics experts told Bisnow last week. In the days before and since President Joe Biden was inaugurated, that began to shift.
On Inauguration Day, an executive at Amazon offered its services to help the Biden administration reach its goal of administering 100 million vaccines in its first 100 days. Starbucks, Costco and Microsoft are all collaborating with the state of Washington to administer the vaccine, NPR reports.
In addition to volunteering space, Google said it will also contribute $150M to vaccine information efforts and promoting equality.
