public health

Bayer Contributes Medicine, Supplies, Knowledge and Financial Support to the Global Fight against COVID-19

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Bayer

The coronavirus presents the world with major challenges. Bayer is active in the areas of health and nutrition and has been working to provide substantial help in overcoming the crisis with their products and expertise.

Bayer has made significant contributions to  the fight against COVID-19 by donating medicines, medical supplies, knowledge and financial aid. “Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary levels of support, and we will deliver,” said Werner Baumann, CEO of Bayer AG. “You can count on each and every one of us at Bayer. Guided by our purpose – Science for a better life – we will do whatever it takes to help serve the world’s health and nutritional needs both during and after this crisis.”

Bayer is focusing on three areas to assist in during this crisis:

Employees’ health:

  • The safety and health of Bayer’s employees is the top priority. As the coronavirus presents a serious risk,  the company has taken the necessary steps to limit its spread.

  • Bayer is frequently updating  its employees on the latest developments.  The enterprise has posted advice on what everyone can do to prevent the virus from spreading on their intranet.

  • All employees can work from home until further notice, if their duties allow.

  • Bayer will assess on a case-by-case basis whether Bayer employed healthcare professionals who wish to volunteer in their communities to help fight the pandemic can temporarily be released from work while the company continues to pay their wages.

Maintaining the supply of their products:

  • Bayer is working at full steam to ensure business continuity so that it can provide hospitals, doctors, patients, consumers and farmers with the products they urgently need at this time.

  • Bayer has comprehensive emergency response plans prepared for all its sites which will be implemented as necessary to ensure that their facilities continue to operate safely and effectively.

Bayer is providing governments, health authorities and municipalities with urgently needed medicines, medical supplies, expertise and financial assistance:

For more information about Bayer’s initiatives please find their Corona Ticker here.

Chevron Develops Innovative Methods to Protect its Customers and Support Communities in NeeD

Chevron

Chevron has mobilized local, regional and global teams to address the pandemic’s impact on the company and to proactively address potential risks. Chevron’s priority is keeping its workers, families, communities and customers safe. The company has also made a series of financial contributions to aid the response to this global crisis. Chevron is working closely with governments and healthcare experts around the world to ensure the company takes appropriate action to reduce the spread of coronavirus. Chevron is committed to striking a balance between social distancing and supplying the world with the energy that is essential to slowing the growth of the disease.

Protecting Customers

At Chevron-operated gas stations, the company has been following the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) guidelines and the guidance of international and local health authorities. It has increased the frequency of cleaning at its stations, provided gloves to cashiers and encouraged employees to take advantage of its paid sick leave program to stay at home if they have cold or flu-like symptoms or a fever. All frequently touched surfaces, like countertops, door handles, dispensers, buttons on equipment and self-service food equipment are cleaned approximately every 30 minutes. The company has also recommended that Chevron and Texaco retailers who operate their own stations follow safety guidelines issued by the CDC and World Health Organization.

Chevron is committed to providing customers with quality fuels and products in a safe environment and remains well-positioned to do so.

Supporting Communities in Need

Chevron believes in the power of humanity to solve any challenge. Together with its global partners, Chevron is enacting a series of social investments and support initiatives to help communities and nonprofits address the COVID-19 public health crisis.

In the U.S. alone, the company has donated more than $5 million to local relief efforts in several states including $2 million to match 2:1 employee contributions to U.S.-based nonprofits. Outside the U.S., Chevron is working with global partners on a variety of initiatives, such as helping to fund emergency services in remote parts of Western Australia and providing medical supplies to hospitals in Thailand. To date, Chevron has committed more than $12 million around the world to COVID-19 response efforts.

Learn more about Chevron’s COVID-19 response here.

Chevron in Thailand

Chevron in Thailand

Palo Alto Networks Provides Cybersecurity for the Remote Workforce

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Palo Alto

Palo Alto Networks is sharing resources and programs to support business continuity during this time.

Palo Alto Networks has solutions ready to go to help organizations secure their remote workforce, such as GlobalProtect and Prisma Access.

In addition to the complicated matter of managing a remote workforce at scale, keeping that workforce secure is top of mind for many organizations. Palo Alto Networks is sharing resources and programs to support business continuity during this time. As organizations rapidly scale remote work options for employees, they need to ensure they can securely and rapidly connect to all of the applications they need, including software-as-a-service (SaaS), cloud, and data center apps — and Palo Alto Networks has solutions ready to go to help organizations secure their remote workforce.

GlobalProtect for existing NGFW customers: Every Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall is designed to support always-on, secure access with GlobalProtect.

Prisma Access: Prisma Access is a globally distributed cloud service that scales automatically to provide the needed capacity for remote workers. It offers the same security functionality as Palo Alto Networks’ next-generation firewalls, but without the need to deploy new infrastructure. As the situation changes globally, this means organizations can maintain business continuity as Prisma Access will auto-scale to wherever capacity is needed.

Additionally, Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 Threat Intelligence team is providing insight on cyber threats during this time to keep organizations informed and help them stay protected from cyberattacks.

More information and resources for organizations to reference can be found here and here.

 

Comcast’s Innovative Response to COVID-19

Comcast

COVID-19 has had a tremendous impact on nearly every aspect of our daily lives.  For this reason, Comcast, NBCUniversal and Sky are working hard to do everything they can to support their customers, employees and communities during this unprecedented time. Some of Comcast’s relief efforts are:

  • Committing $500 Million: Across the business, Comcast has committed $500 million to support its employees through continued pay and benefits where operations have been paused or impacted.

  • Keeping Customers Connected: Keeping the internet accessible and reliable is more important than ever. Comcast’s technology and engineering teams are working tirelessly to support the company’s network operations 24/7 to ensure network performance and reliability.

  • Offering Internet Essentials Free to New Customers: Eligible new customers will receive 60 days of Internet Essentials service, the nation’s largest, most comprehensive internet adoption program for low-income households, without charge. Additionally, the company has increased the speed of this internet service for all customers.

  • Increasing Access to News & Information: The enterprise’s NBC and Sky news teams are working around the clock to keep the world informed, bringing news and information to more people than ever.

  • Providing Free Educational Resources: In partnership with Common Sense Media, the company has curated thousands of hours of free educational programming into an education destination for Xfinity video customers to support remote learning for kids K-12.

  • Delivering More Entertainment: The enterprise is bringing great entertainment home to consumers in new ways – offering movies on demand on the same day as their theatrical releases and making more free content available to X1 video customers.

To learn more about Comcast’s response to COVID-19, click here.

 

Coca-Cola Relief Effort Encompasses Over $100M in Community Support

Coca-Cola

Supporting Communities and First Responders

The Coca-Cola system, with production facilities and franchise bottling operations across the United States, continues to make and deliver the essential beverages local stores and communities need during this challenging time. But the company, its local bottlers, suppliers and employees are doing more than delivering drinks in the communities they call home. Local teams are finding ways to re-deploy resources to help meet the needs of first responders, healthcare workers, community organizations and more.

For example, the company is redirecting some of its global advertising budget to support COVID-19 prevention and relief in markets around the world. The Philippines was the first of many markets to pause advertising for all brands and redirect media spending to help provide personal protective equipment and beverages for health workers, deliver food to vulnerable families, and support small retailers in affected communities.

Supporting Foodservice Partners

To help support the restaurant community – an industry that employs more than 15 million Americans – Coca-Cola North America is providing its more than 8,000 employees across the U.S. and Canada with a $100 delivery credit for either DoorDash, Grubhub, UberEATS or Skip The Dishes to place meal delivery orders during this challenging time. Coca-Cola North America plants also have implemented routines to order takeout meals from foodservice customers as a thank-you to associates working hard to produce Coca-Cola products. This effort adds up to an immediate injection of nearly $1 million into the restaurant industry.

Coca-Cola joined forces with industry peers to support #TheGreatAmericanTakeout initiative, which encourages Americans to support the restaurant industry by ordering delivery or takeout meals. Coca-Cola is encouraging employees, bottling partners and industry partners to participate, and using its social channels to promote the movement. On April 14, The Great American Takeout gave away $10,000 in gift cards to people who order takeout. One grand prize recipient won free takeout for a year in the form of a $5,000 gift card, while 100 more winners will receive a $50 gift card, all courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company. Learn more.

Coca-Cola also launched the Coca-Cola Rapid Response Resource online portal to give restaurants access to free information and resources – from tips for optimizing takeout and drive-thru operations, to updated COVID-19 safety guidelines, to information on third-party delivery services and more.

Together We Can: Using Social and Digital Assets for Good

Coca-Cola is taking several actions to use advertising and marketing resources to spread solidarity. On April 6, Coca-Cola used company and brand social media handles to promote a message of support and togetherness, and will use the scale of Coca-Cola brand handles to share helpful information and meaningful messages from partner community organizations like the American Red Cross, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Salvation Army and Feeding America, among others.

Providing Supplies and Transportation to Help Make Masks for Healthcare Workers and Frontline Responders

In the Boston area, thousands of face shields are being assembled for delivery to medical centers around the region, with more in the works. Ray Dube, sustainability manager at Coca-Cola Beverages Northeast, saw an opportunity to provide much-needed logistics and supply chain support to help nonprofit makerspace “MakeIt Labs” produce face shields to protect front-line healthcare workers.

Dube connected MakeIt volunteers with Coca-Cola plastic recycler UltrePet and packaging manufacturer EasyPak to donate and transport clean PET plastic sheeting to make the specialty shields. EasyPak donated approximately 6,000 pounds of clear PET sheeting, and Coke Northeast delivery trucks transported the Coke system’s first large-scale donation of PET sheets.

In partnership with MakeIt Labs and packaging supplier Sonoco, Coca-Cola also helped transport 6,000 pounds of plastic sheeting from Sonoco’s warehouse in North Carolina to Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Tech students and other groups will use the plastic sheeting to make 50,000+ plastic surgical shields for healthcare workers in the Atlanta area.

Another supplier, Filmquest, has generously agreed to donate 1,200 pounds of polyester film that will be assembled by MakeIt Lab volunteers into plastic surgical shields and donated to hospitals.

Helping Supply Hand Sanitizer and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

The Atlantic Coca-Cola Bottling Company is responding to an urgent request from the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics for hand sanitizer and for donations of personal protective equipment (PPE) by hosting a drop-off location at their offices and rewarding people who donate with free eight-packs of Coca-Cola’s new AHA sparkling water. The Coke bottler is producing hand sanitizer at its Atlantic, Iowa bottling facility and donating it  to the University of Iowa Hospital System.

Additionally, two suppliers – Western Container and Southeastern Container – are working with Coca-Cola bottlers and alcohol distilleries to create plastic bottles that can be filled with hand sanitizer solution and donated to healthcare and public safety workers. Western Container shipped two truckloads (over 200,000 units) of 500-ml bottles to Whiskey Hollow Distillery in Valley View, Texas. These bottles will be custom labeled by the distillery as donated hand sanitizer to Texas-area hospitals.

Providing Financial and In-Kind Support to Community Organizations

The Coca-Cola Foundation, the philanthropic arm of The Coca-Cola Company, is awarding $13.5 million in grants to five nonprofit organizations working on the front lines of the U.S. and Canadian humanitarian response to the coronavirus pandemic. The latest grants support organizations focused on providing relief to first responders and residents of economically disadvantaged communities, both in the company’s hometown of Atlanta and across North America. Read more about the organizations receiving the grants here.

For more information on what Coca-Cola is doing to battle COVID-19, click HERE.

Verizon Serves Customers During COVID-19 with Touchless Retail and More

Verizon

Verizon’s networks have been engineered to perform during moments of crisis and disaster such as hurricanes, snowstorms and flooding. During this time of heightened worry and concern, Verizon’s primary goal is to keep its customers, employees and society connected to the things that matter most to them: their family, friends and business customers.

On May 1, Verizon announced that it is revolutionizing the way it looks at retail both today and into the future with the introduction of “Touchless Retail” – innovations implemented recently that revolve around making the shopping experience both safer and more satisfying. Touchless Retail leverages both physical and digital changes to reduce the number of physical touchpoints, while streamlining the customer shopping experience. With Touchless Retail, customers begin their journey online as they set their in-store appointment for critical troubleshooting or order for in-store pickup and learn about in-store safety measures including the requirements that they wear a face covering. Upon arrival at the store, exterior and interior social distancing markers, safety partitions, sanitizing stations and employees donning face masks and gloves all ensure the physical observance of public health safety practices. Store hours have been adjusted to allow for one-customer-to-one employee ratio appointments.

On April 27, Verizon announced that it is extending its commitment to keep its customers connected through June 30. This means Verizon will neither terminate service nor charge late fees to postpaid wireless, residential, and small business customers that notify Verizon of their inability to pay their bills due to disruptions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.  Verizon has also added data to customers’ wireless data plans to assist them as they work through this time of social distancing and working from home.

Additionally, Verizon signed onto the FCC’s new “Keep Americans Connected” pledge. Verizon’s new customer commitment will help ensure connectivity and offer assistance to customers and small businesses facing challenges from the global crisis.

“Now more than ever, we need to ensure that our customers, their families and businesses have the ability to connect to the internet even if they’re facing financial hardship from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic,” said Hans Vestberg, Verizon Chairman and CEO. “We want to ensure that our customers can continue to use the internet to work, learn, and carry on with their lives as we all address this collective challenge. We’re confident this joint effort will help make that happen.”

Verizon is also closely monitoring network usage in the most impacted areas. Verizon will work with and prioritize network demand in assisting many U.S. hospitals, first responders and government agencies, as needed.

Verizon also donated $3 million to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for the World Health Organization (WHO) as part of a partnership with Global Citizens One World: Together At Home global broadcast special to help aid healthcare workers in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The globally televised and live-streamed special aired on April 18 and featured performances and appearances from international entertainers. Through the United Nations Foundation, the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund will help support the WHO and partners’ efforts to track and understand the spread of the virus; to ensure patients get the care they need and frontline workers get essential supplies and information; and to accelerate efforts to develop vaccines, tests, and treatments.

Verizon’s most recent donation brings the company’s total support of the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO to $5 million and their total COVID-19 crisis commitment to over $50 million in contributions and donations to nonprofits directed at serving students, healthcare workers, first responders, and small businesses.

For daily updates on what Verizon is doing, please click here.

ExxonMobil Response to COVID-19 Includes New Partnerships

ExxonMobil

ExxonMobil is working to help meet the needs of health care professionals fighting the COVID-19 pandemic on the front lines, as well as those socially distancing themselves at home. While those needs continue to evolve, the company remains focused on working to meet global energy demand. Below are just some examples of what ExxonMobil is doing to help fight COVID-19. For a more comprehensive list of initiatives, please click here.

Protecting travelers and TSA officers

To protect travelers and Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers during the COVID-19 pandemic, TSA needed thousands of gallons of disinfectant – and they needed it quickly. Thanks to close coordination between ExxonMobil, one of the largest producers of isopropyl alcohol, a key sanitizer ingredient, and Univar Solutions, one of the largest chemical distributors, the surface disinfectant was produced and distributed to TSA in record time, in just days, rather than the weeks it would have taken before the pandemic.

ExxonMobil is increasing production of IPA to help meet higher demand resulting from the pandemic. Its chemical plant in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has recently been able to achieve an increased monthly production level which equates to enough IPA to supply a monthly equivalent of nearly 50 million 4-ounce bottles of medical-grade sanitizer.

The scale and urgency of TSA’s request required detailed planning and a finely tuned logistics supply chain to manufacture, package and rapidly deliver the product to airports around the country.

From the Baton Rouge facility, the IPA was shipped to Univar Solutions’ packaging plant in Conroe, TX. From there the disinfectant was mixed, bottled and swiftly shipped north to TSA’s distribution facility near the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

That disinfectant is now being distributed to airports nationwide, helping keep travelers, medical personnel and TSA officers safe. And ExxonMobil continues to maximize production of isopropyl alcohol and other important products needed to combat COVID-19 in communities across the country.

Maximizing supply of IPA—key ingredient in medical hand sanitizer

When it comes to fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, it doesn’t matter the size of the company. Everyone has a role to play.

For ExxonMobil – one of the world’s largest producers of isopropyl alcohol (IPA), a key ingredient in medical hand sanitizer – it means getting the product to where it’s needed most. For E.T. Browne – the small, family-owned manufacturer of Palmer’s® personal care products – it means pivoting its business to make medical hand sanitizer for U.S. military personnel and medical first responders.

The decision to repurpose its factory in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, from making lip balm and body lotion to making hand sanitizer wasn’t the hardest part for E.T. Browne. It was obtaining key ingredients like IPA, which is in high demand due to the global emergency. Without IPA, E.T. Browne would not only be unable to make the hand sanitizer, but it also faced the prospect of shutting down its factory, which employs nearly 300 workers. That’s when ExxonMobil, whose Baton Rouge chemical facility is home to the world’s largest plant producing IPA, agreed to help.

ExxonMobil is maximizing its supply of IPA and other chemical products used in making a range of essential tools in the fight against COVID-19. ExxonMobil is also planning donations to other area hospitals. For ExxonMobil, supplying isopropyl alcohol is standard business, but doing so in this case required a swift response and a high priority.

Isopropyl alcohol is just one of many products helping to keep medical workers safe and people healthy. IPA, as an effective disinfectant, can be found in hand sanitizers, alcohol wipes and disinfectant sprays – products that are important in fighting the spread of COVID-19.

Thanking Houston-area COVID-19 responders with meals, masks

ExxonMobil is providing thousands of meals and medical face masks for Houston-area health care workers, police officers and firefighters responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, in a new initiative that brings total contributions for Houston-area relief to $450,000.

ExxonMobil is contributing $100,000 for personal protective equipment, such as medical masks, to Texas Medical Center member hospitals, the Houston Police Foundation, the Fire Fighters Foundation of Houston and the Spring Fire Department.

Another $100,000 will go to the TX Restaurant Relief Fund for the preparation and delivery of approximately 6,000 meals for frontline workers at these organizations. Prominent Houston chefs will participate in the effort that will enable participating restaurants to bring needed work to furloughed staff. The Texas Restaurant Association’s nonprofit arm established the TX Restaurant Relief Fund last month to provide immediate financial support to the state’s independent restaurateurs and their employees who have been heavily impacted by the loss of business due to COVID-19.

The support comes in addition to its recent contribution of $250,000 to the Houston Food Bank and Montgomery County Food Bank to provide about one million meals to Houston-area residents.

ExxonMobil, which has about 11,000 employees living and working the greater Houston area, remains focused on keeping its workforce safe and healthy to maintain its operations and maximize production of materials critical to the global response.

P&G COVID-19 Response Focuses on Protecting P&G People, Serving Consumers, Supporting Communities

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P&G

Protecting P&G People:

P&G people can work confidently knowing the Company stands with and behind them.

P&G is constantly evaluating and updating the robust measures already in place to help its people who are making, packing and shipping P&G products stay safe at work, and, where possible, enabling others to work from home.

This includes access control measures like temperature scans, shift rotations, queueing avoidance and physical distancing; protective equipment including hand sanitizers and masks; and comprehensive, methodical cleaning of all production areas, including regular sanitization and surface disinfection that exceeds the most rigorous health authority standards.

P&G built sustainable and robust employee policies and a culture that can support, nurture, and endure for the long term, with robust health & wellness benefits, access to virtual medical visits without cost, pay continuity, paid leave, flexible work arrangements and more.

Serving Consumers:

P&G is maximizing the availability of products that help people and their families with their health, hygiene and cleaning needs, which have never been greater. 

P&G is running extra shifts, putting idled equipment back into service quickly, and constantly finding new ways to deliver more of the products consumers depend on.

Millions of P&G products are also being donated, helping to ensure families have basic access to the everyday essentials many of us take for granted.

P&G is using marketing and communications expertise to encourage consumers to help flatten the curve and slow the spread of the virus.

And P&G is using our brands’ voices to share important safety, cleaning and hygiene messages with consumers

Supporting Communities:

P&G has a long history of supporting communities in times of need – now is no exception.

P&G product and in-kind donations so far add up to tens of millions of dollars across more than 30 brands, more than 200 different organizations, and in more than 30 countries – and will continue to increase as it works with communities around the world to support their efforts.

P&G modified equipment to produce hand sanitizer in nearly a dozen global manufacturing sites, using it to ensure its people can continue operating safely and sharing it with hospitals, health care facilities and relief organizations.

Work is underway to produce critically needed non-medical face masks in every region of the world.

And P&G leveraged P&G R&D, engineering and manufacturing capability to quickly produce face shields which are currently being used in hospitals and COVID-19 testing centers.

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Apple and Google partner on COVID-19 contact tracing technology

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Apple & Google

Google and Apple announced on April 10 a joint effort to enable the use of Bluetooth technology to help governments and health agencies reduce the spread of the virus, with user privacy and security central to the design.

Since COVID-19 can be transmitted through close proximity to affected individuals, public health organizations have identified contact tracing as a valuable tool to help contain its spread. A number of leading public health authorities, universities, and NGOs around the world have been doing important work to develop opt-in contact tracing technology. To further this cause, Apple and Google will be launching a comprehensive solution that includes application programming interfaces (APIs) and operating system-level technology to assist in enabling contact tracing. Given the urgent need, the plan is to implement this solution in two steps while maintaining strong protections around user privacy. 

First, in May, both companies will release APIs that enable interoperability between Android and iOS devices using apps from public health authorities. These official apps will be available for users to download via their respective app stores. 

Second, in the coming months, Apple and Google will work to enable a broader Bluetooth-based contact tracing platform by building this functionality into the underlying platforms. This is a more robust solution than an API and would allow more individuals to participate, if they choose to opt in, as well as enable interaction with a broader ecosystem of apps and government health authorities. Privacy, transparency, and consent are of utmost importance in this effort, and the companies look forward to building this functionality in consultation with interested stakeholders. Apple and Google will openly publish information about their work for others to analyze.

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