Amazon today committed £3.2 million to support those who are most affected by the COVID-19 crisis in the UK, which includes a donation to the British Red Cross and a fund to support local organisations in communities where our employees live and work. As part of this, Amazon is launching a donation button on our websites across Europe to help customers easily donate to relief efforts and build on our direct contribution. Click here for the Amazon.co.uk donation page for the British Red Cross.
This donation is in addition to existing work we have been doing in the UK, including providing free online STEM resources to students in lower-income communities, and working with charity partner Magic Breakfast to ensure they can continue to provide free breakfast provision to children in disadvantaged areas.
Amazon also recently launched the AWS Diagnostic Development Initiative to support the research and development of diagnostics, which consist of rapid, accurate detection and testing of COVID-19 – as better diagnostics will help accelerate treatment and containment, and in time, shorten the course of this epidemic. The program is there to support people who are working to bring better, more accurate, diagnostics solutions to market faster and promote better collaboration across organisations that are working on similar problems. As part of this, Amazon committed an initial investment of $20 million to accelerate diagnostic research, innovation, and development to speed our collective understanding and detection of COVID-19 and other innovate diagnostic solutions to mitigate future infectious disease outbreaks.
These are just some of the many efforts underway, and we will continue to update this blog as things develop.
For more information about what Amazon is doing to support those affected by this crisis, click here.
