I don't know where these rumors come from and how they persist but just like we reported in April and May, Google has not slowed crawling or indexing to save money and resources during the pandemic. COVID-19 and this coronavirus has not made Google look to search for a way to save money at the company.
John said this weekend "that's not correct" when someone said "actually the truth is that due to covid-19 pandemic to save google resources and money they are indexing less web content." He said this on Twitter:
That's not correct.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) August 7, 2020
In any event, yes, Google had a bad quarter but I cannot imagine Google would take its best asset and cut costs when it comes to crawling and indexing the web.
Forum discussion at Twitter.