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Alphabet's drone service delivers medicine during coronavirus pandemic

The company's Wing subsidiary is also delivering food and household products.

Corinne Reichert Senior Editor
Corinne Reichert (she/her) grew up in Sydney, Australia and moved to California in 2019. She holds degrees in law and communications, and currently writes news, analysis and features for CNET across the topics of electric vehicles, broadband networks, mobile devices, big tech, artificial intelligence, home technology and entertainment. In her spare time, she watches soccer games and F1 races, and goes to Disneyland as often as possible.
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Corinne Reichert
Google Alphabet Wing drone

Alphabet's Wing drones are delivering food, medicine and household goods.

Wing

Google parent company Alphabet sad Wednesday that it's using its Wing drones to deliver food and medicine during the coronavirus pandemic. Alphabet's Wing subsidiary said it's seen a "dramatic" increase in customers using the service, with more than 1,000 deliveries completed in the last two weeks while people face lockdowns nationwide.

Project Wing was first unveiled by Google in 2014, with the drone delivery service certified by the US Federal Aviation Administration at the end of last year.

Wing said it's seeing customers in the US order health and wellness items from Walgreens, including medicine, toothpaste and toilet paper, and groceries like pasta, canned foods, fruit cups and baby food.

"We're trying to support local businesses that aren't able to open their doors by allowing them to deliver their products directly to customers' homes," Wing said. It pointed to a local bakery in Christiansburg, Virginia, which is now selling 50% more pastries via Wing on one weekend than it usually sells in store.

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