![]() ![]() Trump announced a website that did not exist With limitations like this in mind, it’s clear that Verily’s new tool is quite different from the site Trump described in mid March. The Verily screening site now serves residents of San Mateo, Santa Clara, Riverside, and Sacramento counties in California. The screening process starts by asking people if they’re symptomatic, though only those who say they have severe symptoms are directed to log in with a Google account to find a testing site. The new Verily coronavirus triage site works through the company’s existing Project Baseline website, and it launched ahead of schedule. When Recode contacted Verily for more details about the project, the company directed us to a blog post it published shortly before the pilot site went live on March 15. Since Google and Verily are separate companies, it’s hard to know how closely the two are collaborating on the efforts. After Trump’s speech, Verily said that it was “in the early stages of development” of a tool to triage potential coronavirus patients and “is planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time.” Verily used to be a subsidiary of Google, but now both Google and Verily are subsidiaries of their parent company Alphabet. The site Trump initially promised sounds much more like what’s being developed by the life sciences research company Verily, which is related to Google but is a distinct company. It does not include much information about how to find testing centers. The company announced on March 15 that it was “partnering with the US Government in developing a nationwide website that includes information about COVID-19 symptoms, risk, and testing information.” The new Google site includes plenty of information culled from sources like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). ![]() Rather than creating a dynamic site that guides people to testing locations, what Google built is much simpler. ![]() Google does have a plan for responding to the coronavirus, but it’s not what the president said it was. The situation is much more complicated than that. Now that the Verily and Google sites are live, it’s more clear than ever that the website Trump described is not what the American public will use to find coronavirus testing. The belated launch came not long after Vanity Fair reported that President Trump was angry at Jared Kushner for overselling Google’s plans, before the president announced the new website at a White House press conference. It does not include the things Trump said the site would include, like information about local testing sites. The informational website includes “state-based information, safety and prevention tips, search trends related to COVID-19, and further resources for individuals, educators and businesses,” according to Google’s announcement. Google announced a week later that it would expand to two more testing sites in Northern California.Īfter being delayed by several days, Google finally launched its coronavirus portal on March 21. On top of that, the Verily site reached capacity the morning after launch. People with symptoms were told they weren’t eligible for the screening program, and those who were needed a Google login to use the tool. It wasn’t long before the Verily site ran into trouble. Trump said at a March 15 press conference that his earlier comments about Google had been “substantiated” and thanked “the head of Google, a great gentleman.” A few hours later, a site made by Google’s sister company Verily went live with a tool for coronavirus risk screening that directed residents of two counties in Northern California to test centers. Given the threat the novel coronavirus poses to the US, this is not a good sign. In the aftermath of the announcement, reports emerged that Google was not fully aware of the plan Trump said the company was participating in. Nearly two weeks after President Donald Trump announced on March 13 that Google was racing to build a site to help Americans find coronavirus testing, people are still confused about what’s actually going on. ![]()
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