US President Donald Trump today announced that search giant Google is in the process of creating a website focused on the COVID-19 virus outbreak. The website will act as a form of pre-testing triage and will help to give US citizens some much-needed direction in this challenging time.
Google is building a website that will help people in the United States screen themselves for symptoms of COVID-19 and then, if necessary, direct them to drive-thru testing locations. Users will be able to type in their symptoms and review their test results when they become available. After visiting a mobile test site, the timeline for results is 24 hours, according to the White House though the sample has to make it to a lab first, and that timeframe is variable.
There are no specifics regarding when the site will go live, but more details about the initiative are coming the evening of Sunday, March 15th, Vice President Mike Pence said.
In a memo to employees seen by CNBC, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company’s life sciences arm, Verily, was working to “aid in the COVID-19 testing effort in the US.” This reportedly includes partnering with government officials to direct potential patients to Verily’s Project Baseline website.
Google confirmed Verily’s involvement in a tweet, saying, “We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for COVID-19 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. We appreciate the support of government officials and industry partners and thank the Google engineers who have volunteered to be part of this effort.”
Project Baseline is a global health-mapping and clinical research initiative that functions in collaboration with outside scientists and volunteers. Verily is largely known for its wearables, such as the ECG-driven Study Watch.
he US has more than 1,600 confirmed cases of the virus and more than 40 afflicted people in the country have died, according to the CDC. The Trump administration pledged to roll out 1 million testing kits by the end of last week, though authorities missed that goal. According to the CDC, just over 11,000 specimens have been tested in the US since January.
