ANALYSIS: Google, Walmart join U.S. effort to speed up coronavirus testing

March 14, 2020  07H:43  GMT/ZULU

by Tamara Kachelmeier and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters News Technology News Analysts, San Francisco

Corporate America joined the fight against the spread of coronavirus on Friday, as President Donald Trump and executives announced that Google would offer a website to help people determine whether they needed tests and retailers would set up drive-through testing in parking lots.

Ambassador Debbie Birx, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, displays the new testing protocols being deployed for coronavirus after U.S. President Donald Trump declared the coronavirus pandemic a national emergency during a news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, U.S., March 13, 2020. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

Shares of Google parent Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O), Walmart Inc (WMT.N), Target Corp (TGT.N) and drugstore owner CVS Health Corp (CVS.N) all closed up more than 9%, in line with the broad stock market, though Alphabet dropped 2% after hours.

Pressure has been rising on U.S. officials to increase and improve testing for the Donald Trump which has reached almost every U.S. state and infected more than 1,660 people in the country.

“I want to thank Google. Google is helping to develop a website, it’s gonna be very quickly done, unlike websites of the past, to determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location,” Trump said.

“Google has 1,700 engineers working on this right now, made tremendous progress.”

An administration presentation showed a potential user would be asked several questions on the website and then given a recommendation as to whether they should get a coronavirus test.

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Those requiring a test would be referred to a store that can provide assistance, potentially including a drive-through test, according to the administration’s presentation. Results would be available online in 24 to 36 hours.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said the website’s launch date would be known by Sunday night.

Verily, a healthcare tech company also owned by Alphabet, said it was leading the effort to develop the web tool, with the help of an undisclosed number of Google employees.

“We are in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the (San Francisco) Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time,” Verily spokeswoman Kathleen Parkes said.

About 1,700 Google workers have volunteered to help with coronavirus-related efforts, according to a person familiar with the matter, but it is unclear whether all of them are involved with developing the new website.

Carolyn Wang, another Verily spokeswoman, said it initially aimed to assess testing needs for people more prone to catching the virus, such as healthcare workers. But she said Verily now plans to trial the system more broadly at several sites around the San Francisco region.

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Wang added that Verily was “collaborating closely with organizations like Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp who are also working on additional approaches to making testing more accessible and expedient in other areas.”

Quest Diagnostics Inc (DGX.N) and Laboratory Corp of America Holdings (LH.N) did not respond to after-hours requests for comment.

The Verily spokeswomen did not respond to questions on how data submitted by website visitors would be protected and used.

Leading U.S. retailers will work with the government to assist with drive-through coronavirus testing, the Retail Industry Leaders Association said. Senior leaders of Walmart, Target, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) and CVS stood with Trump at the announcement.

The tests will be conducted in retail store parking lots and sent to labs to complete testing in partnership with local health departments and diagnostic labs. The testing sites will not be run by the companies.

FINDING A TEST

The cooperation with the Trump administration comes as Alphabet faces several antitrust investigations from state and federal agencies over its search and digital advertising businesses.

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Trump has accused Google of skewing its search results to portray him negatively. The company has also attracted the administration’s ire for not renewing a contract to provide its artificial intelligence technologies for a military drone program.

“Google cozying up to the government doesn’t hurt,” said Andre Barlow, an antitrust expert with the law firm Doyle, Barlow and Mazard. “Obviously there are a lot of factors that are weighed in the antitrust investigation, which could go either way.”

Trump also is eager to increase testing after efforts were hampered by flawed kits distributed by the federal government in February, which gave some false results.

ANALYSIS: Coronavirus infects 100,000-plus worldwide, 21 cases found on ship off San Francisco

March 7, 2020  11H:21  GMT/ZULU

by Emily Straton, Alyssa Mann, and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters News Analysts, LONDON/LOS ANGELES

LONDON/LOS ANGELES - Twenty-one people aboard a cruise ship that was barred from docking in San Francisco have tested positive for coronavirus, U.S. officials said on Friday, adding to the more than 100,000 cases of the fast-spreading illness across the world.

Vice President Mike Pence, recently appointed as the U.S. government’s point man on the outbreak, said the cruise ship Grand Princess will be brought to an unspecified non-commercial port where all 2,400 some passengers and 1,100 crew members will now be tested.

“Those that need to be quarantined, will be quarantined. Those that require additional medical attention will receive it,” Pence told reporters at the White House.

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The outbreak has killed more than 3,400 people and spread across more than 90 nations, with seven countries reporting their first cases on Friday. The economic damage has also intensified, with business districts starting to empty and stock markets continuing to tumble.

President Donald Trump on Friday signed a bill to provide $8.3 billion to bolster the capacity to test for coronavirus and fund other measures in the United States. Cases have now been reported in more than half of the 50 U.S. states. Fifteen people have died in the country.

In many affected countries, people were being asked to stay home from work, schools were closed, large gatherings and sports and music events were canceled, stores were cleared of staples like toiletries and water, and face masks became a common sight.

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The World Health Organization (WHO) said every country should make containing the epidemic its top priority, pointing to Iran’s national action plan to combat one of the worst outbreaks after a slow start.

Iran’s death toll from the virus jumped to 124, as more than 1,000 new cases were diagnosed over 24 hours.

The Vatican reported its first case, a patient in its health services, worsening the prospects of the virus having already spread further in the Italian capital, since most employees in the walled city-state live in Rome, and those who live in the Vatican frequently go in and out to the city that surrounds it.

Italy is the worst-hit European country, with a death toll as of Friday of 197.

An ambulance drives away with a resident at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, a long-term care facility linked to several confirmed coronavirus cases, in Kirkland, Washington, U.S. March 6, 2020. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson


South Korea on Saturday reported 174 additional cases from late Friday, taking the national tally to 6,767. Mainland China, where the outbreak started, reported 99 new confirmed cases but about a quarter of them came from outside the country, data showed.

About 3.4% of confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, have died, far above seasonal flu’s fatality rate of under 1%, the WHO said this week.

SUPPLY CHAINS BROKEN

Moves by some major economies, including the United States, to cut interest rates and pledge funds to fight the epidemic have done little to allay fears about the spread of the disease and the economic fallout. Supply chains have been crippled around the world.

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“There’s concern that while there has been a response from the Fed, given the nature of the problem, is this something the central bank can really help with?” said John Davies, G10 rates strategist at Standard Chartered Bank in London.

In New York, JPMorgan (JPM.N) divided its team between central locations and a secondary site in New Jersey, while Goldman Sachs (GS.N) sent some traders to nearby secondary offices in Greenwich, Connecticut, and Jersey City.

Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) is splitting its trading force from Monday and sending 100 New York-based staff to nearby Stamford, Connecticut, sources familiar with the matter said.

In London, Europe’s financial capital, the Canary Wharf district was unusually quiet. S&P Global’s large office stood empty after the company sent its 1,200 staff home, and HSBC asked around 100 people to work from home after a worker tested positive for the illness.

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France’s prime minister said nurseries and schools would close for 15 days from Monday in the two areas worst hit by coronavirus infections, one north of Paris and the other in the northeastern part of the country.

The South by Southwest music and tech festival in Austin, Texas, and two music festivals in Florida were canceled over concerns about events that bring crowds of people into close proximity. The NCAA Division III men’s basketball tournament was scheduled to go ahead at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore this weekend, but without spectators.

Saudi Arabia will suspend public attendance at all sports events starting Saturday, the ministry of sports said.

The United Nations said it had canceled some meetings in Bonn, Germany, and elsewhere planned in the run-up to a crucial U.N. climate summit to be held in Scotland in November.

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MARKETS HIT

Yields on U.S. Treasuries plunged to historic lows on fears the outbreak will slam the global economy, and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe .MIWD00000PUS shed 3.10%. [MKTS/GLOB]U.S. stocks fell but ended well above their session lows. [.N]

Airline and travel stocks have been among the worst affected as people canceled non-essential travel. Norwegian Air Shuttle (NWC.OL), the hardest-hit stock among European carriers, lost more than quarter of its market value on Friday and has fallen almost 70% since the start of February.

“If this really ramps up, we could see a lot more kitchen-sinking updates from the travel industry and airlines,” said Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG.

(GRAPHIC - Tracking the novel coronavirus: here)

U.S. officials begin assessing asylum seekers in Australia

 Sat Nov 19, 2016 | 05H:53  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Louise Healy and Biodun Iginla,  BBC News and Reuters, Sydney

U.S. officials have arrived in Australia to begin assessing asylum seekers held on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island and Nauru for resettlement in the United States, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Saturday.

Australia announced last week it had reached a deal in which the United States would take a substantial number of the 1,200 refugees held at the Australian-funded offshore processing centers, although the election of Donald Trump has injected uncertainty into the agreement.

Trump started campaigning for the presidency by advocating a blanket ban on Muslims entering the United States, but later adjusted his stance to propose that the ban should apply to people from nations that had been "compromised by terrorism".

Many of asylum seekers at the camps are Muslims who have fled conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Officials from Homeland Security are in Australia right now in fact and they will be going to Nauru shortly,” Turnbull said on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima, Peru. A transcript of his remarks to journalists was issued by his office.

Resettlement is unlikely to come before Trump's January 20 inauguration, and Turnbull said the timeline would be determined by American officials.

Professor Simon Jackman, chief executive of the United States Studies Centre at Sydney University, said the deal may require further negotiation once Trump was in office.

“All of the signs from the Trump administration are that deals like this are looked at unfavorably,” Jackman said.

Should Trump veto the deal, the detainees would be left with the choice of returning to their home countries or remaining in Nauru or Papua New Guinea.

Turnbull is facing growing outrage both at home and internationally over the treatment of the refugees. A U.S. veto may force him to search for another country willing to take them.

Under Australia's tough border security laws, asylum seekers intercepted trying to reach the country by boat are sent for processing at detention camps Manus island and Nauru.