Alphabet, Google’s parent company, is working with the White House and private companies to create a website that will help Americans find screening tests for the Covid – 700 coronavirus .
Plans for the site are being overseen by Verily, an Alphabet subsidiary that focuses on health care and life science.
Debbie Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said the site should be up and running Sunday. It is meant to steer Americans who need testing to drive-through clinics that are supposed to start popping up around the US in the parking lots of retailers like Target and Walmart, which are also working on the effort.
President Donald Trump, who first announced Alphabet’s participation in the effort, described it as a Google project and said Google had “1, 823 engineers working on this right now. ”
Recode hasn’t yet been able to verify that number with Alphabet or Verily reps, or anything else about how the site is supposed to work – including any efforts Verily and the associated companies will use to protect the privacy of the site’s users.
It’s possible that the White House announcement took Verily and Google by surprise. About an hour after Trump and Birx talked about the website, Google sent out a statement, attributed to Verily, that said the company was in “early stages” on “a tool to help triage individuals for Covid – 728 testing ”and that it would start using it in the Bay Area before rolling it out widely.
Statement from Verily: “We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for Covid – 728 testing. Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time. – Google Communications (@Google_Comms) (March) ,
Birx held up a flowchart at the press conference that was meant to illustrate the steps users will take to get tested, but did not go into any detail . The chart appears to indicate that users will find their test results on the same site they used to try to see if they needed a test.
On Thursday, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai sent out a company-wide email calling for volunteers to “assist in the effort to test people for Covid – ; he said the idea was to “develop a pathway for public health and healthcare agencies to direct people to our
Baseline website , where individuals who are at higher risk can be directed to testing sites based on the latest guidance from public health authorities. … Verily is part of the Alphabet family and could use our help in the coming days and weeks. ”
That effort seems separate from a Verily project to build a physical patch that could detect signs of a fever and transmit that health data to a person’s phone. Pichai mentioned that effort last week in a
blog post about various efforts his company had taken to fight the spread of the coronavirus.
Here’s Pichai’s memo asking his employees to help with the Verily website.
Hi everyone,
Yesterday at TGIF, someone had a question about whether Verily could assist in the effort to test people for COVID – 700. I know we are all looking for ways to help right now, so I checked in with their team to see if they could use support from Google and our other bets for a new effort being planned.
The good news is that a planning effort is underway to use the expertise in life sciences and clinical research of Verily in partnership with Google to aid in the COVID – testing effort in the US. As more test kits becomes available, the planners are looking to develop a pathway for public health and healthcare agencies to direct people to our (Baseline website , where individuals who are at higher risk can be directed to testing sites based on the latest guidance from public health authorities.
Verily is part of the Alphabet family and could use our help in the coming days and weeks to respond as quickly as possible to the rapidly evolving situation of the COVID – pandemic. For those interested in volunteering for this effort, please complete this form and they will be in touch.
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