Administration

Pence says ‘very specific’ information on Google coronavirus tool is coming

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Vice President Pence said Saturday that “very specific” information on the release of a new Google website aimed at combating the coronavirus will be announced Sunday at 5 p.m. EDT.

“The objective here is to have a website up very quickly,” Pence said at a press conference that featured members of the White House’s coronavirus task force.

“We’re working 24/7 on this. We’re going to have very specific details on the rollout of this new public-private partnership and testing tomorrow at 5 o’clock,” he told reporters.

Trump had said during a Rose Garden press conference on Friday afternoon that “Google is helping to develop a website that’s going to be very quickly done.” The goal of the website, Trump said, would be to see if testing for the coronavirus was necessary.

The tech giant pushed back against Trump’s claims that the tool was being quickly developed later Friday.

“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,” Google Communications said in a statement posted to its public affairs Twitter account.

“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 continued.

During his press conference Friday, the president declared a national emergency, which freed up billions of dollars to help fight the pandemic.

There have been more than 2,400 confirmed cases of the virus in the U.S. with at least 50 deaths.

Tags Coronavirus Donald Trump Google Mike Pence

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