Google on Friday appeared to temper President Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for quick development of a website to help people across the nation determine if they need a coronavirus test.
“Google is helping to develop a website. It's going to be very quickly done, unlike Websites of the past — to determine if a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby, convenient location,” the president said during a Rose Garden speech in which he declared a national emergency in the face of the burgeoning pandemic.
"Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now,” he added.
But Google tweeted a slightly different scenario.
"We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for Covid-19 testing,” said Verily, the life sciences unit of its parent company Alphabet.
“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,” the statement added.
Carolyn Wang, communications lead for Verily, told The Verge the “triage website” was initially only going to be made available to health care workers instead of the general public.
The triage site should be put live within a few days, and it will be hosted at Project Baseline, the Verily website where people can sign up to take part in clinical trials, The Verge reported.
Vice President Mike Pence promised more details and a launch date for the project by Sunday.
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