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It looks like Google's sister company Verily rushed out a half-finished coronavirus testing website after Trump botched the announcement
It looks like Google's sister company Verily rushed out a half-finished coronavirus testing website after Trump botched the announcement
Charlie Wood,Shona GhoshMar 16, 2020, 17:41 IST
Yuri Gripas/ReutersPresident Donald Trump speaks at a press briefing with members of the Coronavirus Task Force at the White House in Washington, U.S., March 14, 2020.
Google's life sciences sister company, Verily, appears to have rushed to unveil a website for coronavirus testing after a botched announcement from President Trump.
Verily's Project Baseline site offers information about COVID-19 and a process for people worried about their risk to schedule tests.
The site, live as of Sunday night, appears half-finished and confusing.
Trump announced the project on Friday, and appears to have both exaggerated its scope and taken Google and Verily off guard.
Verily said over the weekend that the project was in the early phase of development.
Google's life sciences sister company, Verily, appears to have rushed to launch a website offering access to COVID-19 screening, after a botched announcement by President Trump.
The website, called Project Baseline, has been developed by Verily alongside the California Governor's office, as well as federal, state and local public health authorities.
The goal is to offer information about COVID-19 and scheduling people who are worried about their risk for tests.
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The site went live on Sunday but looks somewhat incomplete. Its launch was muddled by mischaracterizations about the project by President Trump, who announced on Friday that Google was building a nationwide coronavirus-testing website.
The site was, in fact, built by Google sister company Verily and initially only available to people in parts of California.
On Friday, President Trump claimed Google had 1,700 engineers working on a nationwide service to help coronavirus tests. This appeared to be wrong.
Google later clarified that its sister firm Verily was working on the project, which isn't yet nationwide
Here's how it works: Visitors to Verily's Project Baseline website are prompted to take a survey to see if they're eligible for COVID-19 testing
The website specifies that the site is only triaging people in Santa Clara and San Mateo in California.
There's one major privacy barrier — you have to create a Google account or connect your existing one to Project Baseline
Confusingly, it isn't clear how you're actually meant to connect your Google account to Project Baseline.
In its site FAQs, Google says: "We ask that you create a Google Account or connect your existing Google Account to participate in this program. This will enable us to collect your answers to the screening survey, contact you to schedule testing, and deliver results back to you. Your data collected by Verily through the testing program will never be joined with your data stored in Google products without your explicit permission."
Google might also share your data with third parties, but says it won't use your information for advertising.
On its site, Google says Verily personnel will have access to individuals' names, addresses, and phone numbers in order to schedule tests.
It also says: "Information may also be shared with certain service providers engaged to perform services on behalf of Verily, including Google, which Verily leverages for certain technology and services, including cloud services, security services, data storage, website hosting, and other support functions."
If you click into the survey, you are asked if you are experiencing COVID-19 symptoms
Confusingly, if you answer "yes," it says the testing program "is not the right fit"
If you answer "no," the website continues the survey and asks for your age
If you say you're under 18, the survey says you're ineligible for testing
If you say you're over 18, it asks if you live within 50 miles of the testing sites in Santa Clara County or San Mateo County, California
If you say "no,' it tells you you're ineligible for testing
If you answer "yes," you're told (as of Monday March 16) that no appointments can be scheduled
We've asked Verily for comment, but it certainly looks like its COVID-19 testing project isn't ready for primetime yet
