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The surge of the omicron variant of coronaviruses has led to plans to make it easier to find tests.
Photo by Drew Angerer.
President Biden said today that Americans will soon be able to order free COVID tests from a government website. The 500 million at- home tests the government is purchasing to combat the Omicron surge will be delivered to your home on websites.
The website's details are not clear. The White House will have more information as it becomes available, including what the website looks like, according to Jen Psaki.
President Biden said that his administration is working with the internet giant to make it easier for Americans to find testing locations. He said that people could just enter the terms "COVID test near me" into a search bar and find a number of different locations nearby.
In an email to The Verge, a spokeswoman for the company said that the president's description was part of ongoing work the company has been doing since last year to make testing and vaccine information available in Search and Maps. She said that the company is constantly making improvements to the information they give on Search and Maps. We have been working with the administration and government agencies on these efforts, and recently made an update that added info about thousands more free testing sites. There was no specific information on how the Biden administration and the internet giant had worked together.
The various promises about websites and testing reminded me of comments made by former President Trump, who claimed in March 2020 that the government was working with Google on a website to provide coronaviruses testing at retail pharmacy like Walgreens.
At a press conference on March 13th, 2020, Trump said that he had spoken to the head of the search engine company, who said that they were going to develop a website to determine if a test was necessary and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location. Shortly after Trump spoke, the company said it was not working with the government on a nationwide COVID testing website. Trump inflated work done by Verily, a separate company under the parent company of the internet giant, which never delivered such a website. Verily launched a limited trial website in the Bay Area, but later phased it out.
Biden tried to distance the current situation from the early days of the epidemic and the disorganized response of the Trump administration.
Biden said that this is not March of 2020. There are two hundred million people who are vaccine free. We are prepared. We know more.
Hopefully the website arrives.
Update December 21st at 5:49PM: Added a statement from the company.
