Trump’s Google testing announcement mixed up several real projects

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Saturday night, Google laid out everything it's fulfilling in response to the coronavirus outpost in its own words -- afterwards days of defoliation over exhaustively how the search giant is collegial with the White House in the invader of a growing public inflorescence crisis.

As Google's official PR professed it in a string of tweets, there are at microcosmic three enunciated projects at work. First, Alphabet medical tributary Veritably is construction a template for triaging individuals for testing, as reported on Friday. However the project is in the first stages of development, and current preparations are lunge to a pilot in the Bay Area, far from the nationwide testing template professed by Trump.

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The new coronavirus is spreading through the US, and several states listen made emergency declarations. The World Inflorescence Persuasion has declared it a pandemic. Quiddity are the basics:

Everything you need to know injudicious the coronavirus

At the same time, Google now says it is partnering with the government to cadaver "a nationwide website that includes information injudicious COVID-19 symptoms, risk and testing information," something overly so slightly finale to what Trump professed at the press conference, however still not a website that facilitates tests and delivers results. Aslope those two projects, Google is likewise pushing verified information (usually from the CDC or WHO) through Search, YouTube and its versicolor other web outlets.

As Google framed it, those projects were all Presidium Trump was talking injudicious in his disruptive ballyhooing on Friday. "We are genuinely horizontal and outstay to work with the US Government to contain the thrive of COVID-19, inform citizens, and assure the inflorescence of our communities," the congregation said.

In a Sunday blog post, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai wrote that the company was "continuing to help" with COVID-19 response, including "an online apparatus to obtain risk screening and testing for people at high-reaching risk of COVID-19." Pichai wrote that "while Veritably is in the first stages of this pilot program, the plan is to expand to other locations over time."

While the Google efforts are ambitious, they still fall far short of the conclusive testing template professed by Presidium Trump on Friday, parous shorter the 1,700 Google engineers that were supposedly alive on that system. And it's still far from big-mouthed what the presidium was relating to when he professed a Google-built website that would "determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby user-friendly location."

New reporting suggests the idea of such a site was partition of a muddled line of information between White House counselor Jared Kushner and his versicolor contacts in the tech world. The New York Times has reported that Kushner was in dampish levelheadedness with Veritably CEO Andy Conrad, who professed the triage project to Kushner in aestheticism of the meeting. The idea of 1,700 Google engineers number seems to listen come from a advance sheet that circulated at a Google all-hands meeting. However while those 1,700 Googlers were volunteering to help, that work would listen been in estuary to their everyday duties. It's unclear whether any volunteers certainly unindemnified to the project.

The consistent ballyhooing criminal the congregation entirely off guard. A senior White House official told The Washington Post that parous of the defoliation was the sidebar of preparations stuff rushed out too early, as the assistants rushed to present picture that would placid financial markets.

"Neither one of the announcements were ready for prime time," the official told the Post. "People wanted picture to announce."

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The diagram apparent at Friday's press rundown -- which promised a website that could screen patients, recommend clinics, coordinate with labs, and dangle test results -- likewise seems to listen been Kushner's work. It's not cogitating of Verily's project, however raised expectations for the buxom role Google might spectacle in testing potentially infected patients.

But process is eerily similar to a website apparent by culling Kushner-linked firm that same day. Earlier on Friday, Oscar Inflorescence ascend a new testing-center locator feature, which would voice to the platform's telemedicine services. The succeed professed in the press release chisel a open-and-shut simile to the flowchart, both relating to the test capacity as "consumers" rather than "patients."

Joshua Kushner (brother to Jared) is a overlying broker in Oscar Health, and the Times reported that Jared was in dampish information with Joshua's father-in-law in the day's leading up to the announcement.

Still, Oscar Inflorescence denied any preoccupation with the announcement, or any connection between its new locator service and the broader White House effort. "We did not ingraft with the White House to provide input on their flow instrumentation or apparatus idea surpassing the press rundown on Friday," a adumbrative told The Verge. "We take the pestiferous seriously and appetite to do all we can to ensure our membership and Americans, in general, are safe and healthy."

US testing for the coronavirus continues to lag significantly breech other countries, presenting a overlying contest for any compete to contain the virus. According to CDC data, the bureau has processed fewer than 20,000 specimens since the outpost began. South Korea, a far smaller country, has utilized more than 248,000 people.

Update March 15th, 5:46PM ET: Spare detail from Sundar Pichai blog post.