Contrary to Trump’s Claim, Google Isnt Building a Nationwide Coronavirus Website | Hacker News Reader

Contrary to Trump’s Claim, Google Isnt Building a Nationwide Coronavirus Website

daringfireball.net

42 pointsdonmcc14 comments

Statement from Verily: "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. Verily Life Sciences, also known as Verily, is Alphabet Inc.’s research organization devoted to the study of life sciences.

While that's probably what he was thinking of, it's still a bizarre claim:

"Even that, though, was not the original plan. The Verge reported Friday afternoon, Verily had intended the site for health care workers only. After Trump unexpectedly publicized the effort, Verily decided it will let anyone visit it, but can still only provide people with testing site information in the San Francisco area."

https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-donald-trump-google-...

From the article:

> In the memo, Pichai told employees that "a planning effort is underway" for Verily to "aid in the COVID-19 testing effort in the US."

So it was mentioned and being planned

Disclosure: Am a googler, know nothing about any of this other than public press

I laughed out loud watching it live and reading the quote later:

"I want to thank Google. Google is helping to develop a website. It’s going to be very quickly done — unlike websites of the past...Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now. They have made tremendous progress."

"1700 engineers!" :-)

Whether you like Trump or not, it comes across as petty to jump all over him for a misstatement like this, even if it is hyperbolic. In all likelihood, some aide probably mentioned that "Google has 1700 engineers building a testing website", that stuck with him and he ran with it.

BFD, come on people. Of all the things to pick on at a time like this, we've got a lot bigger fish to fry.

In his last two coronavirus speeches he's given out just plain wrong information somehow. They're wrong in ways its hard to believe they couldn't get right and in ways it doesn't even seem helpful to him (unless he plans to blame Google for not having something ready).

These aren't answers to live questions or anything. For some reason his prepared statements are incorrect. (In the first one he talked about goods from Europe being banned and corrected it after on Twitter)

> In his last two coronavirus speeches he's given out just plain wrong information somehow.

To be fair, he does that in every speech, regardless of topic.

And so... that means we should forgive him for it when it’s about a life or death situation?

He was known to be a liar and a charlatan when he was elected, so we clearly didn't care then. And we haven't cared enough over the last four years to effectively remove him from office, so why pretend it matters now?

Because now a LOT of people are going to die because of it.

And some of us have cared the whole time. Unfortunately it’s only the geographic distribution of who cares that matters. Not just the count or percentage.

How could it be OK for the President to repeatedly give inaccurate statements about a crisis?

He made no less than three major mistakes in his scripted Oval Office address causing greater confusion.

The leading Democratic candidate is no better. According to him, half the country has been killed by gun violence since 2007.

https://twitter.com/i/events/1238602623516733440

Twitter is saying they are. (?)

This sounds like BS honestly. You know Trumps only conversations were with the CEOs many of whom he asked to make commitments. Contrary to a "googler" who posted in this thread. According to the NYTimes Alphabet CEO already sent a memo to internal employees seeking volunteers for the project and it is expected that 1700 people volunteered.

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