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Amazon Care is teaming up with the Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network (SCAN) — a research endeavor back by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — to study how the coronavirus is spreading among different demographic groups, according to CNBC. As part of the team-up, Amazon Care will deliver diagnostic tests to individuals who either feel sick or who are asymptomatic. Amazon Care will then pick up the tests for analysis, and participants will be contacted by a clinician if the novel coronavirus is detected.

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The move follows the firm's talks with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Seattle-based healthcare firms to provide coronavirus testing support — and helps Amazon Care tap into the infectious disease space. Seattle's King County has been hit particularly hard by the novel coronavirus: 95 people have died and 2,000 individuals have been diagnosed with the coronavirus in Washington state — and about half of those cases have been in King County, per CNBC.

Amazon Care's involvement with SCAN comes at a time when the US is already lagging behind other nations in coronavirus testing. Getting tests into the hands of King County residents is critical to containing the virus, considering asymptomatic individuals are believed to be driving its spread — and a diagnostic test is the only way to confirm an individual's infection status and arm them with the knowledge that they should isolate themselves to mitigate the further spread of the virus.

Amazon Care represents one segment of Amazon's larger healthcare play — and the tech titan's multifaceted coronavirus initiatives could prime it for success in healthcare post-pandemic. Amazon's response to the coronavirus pandemic hasn't been limited to Amazon Care's team-up with SCAN — the tech giant is participating in the White House's COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium to speed up scientific discovery in the battle against the virus, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) committed $20 million to its Diagnostic Development Initiative in support of researchers leveraging AWS' tech to accelerate coronavirus detection.

And the tech titan's involvement in these multifaceted coronavirus initiatives could help it reap the rewards of its larger healthcare play once the coronavirus has subsided: For example, Amazon and AWS' initiatives to speed up coronavirus discovery and detection could make the firms attractive partners to pharmaceutical companies looking to accelerate drug discovery and limit development costs of their own. And with the tech giant's coronavirus initiatives enabling the company to further tap into the R&D and infectious disease spaces in healthcare, we think Amazon will be in pole position to tap into the $3.7 trillion US healthcare market post-coronavirus.

Business Insider Intelligence is working hard to provide you with the latest data and our most up-to-date thinking on how the coronavirus pandemic will impact your industry, and what you can do to stay ahead. Read all of our coronavirus coverage on Business Insider Intelligence>> (Enterprise subscription required)

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