A Verily drive-through test clinic in California. | Photo by Santiago Mejia / The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
Two California counties are no longer using Google sister company Verily’s COVID-19 testing system, Kaiser Health News reported. The counties, home to San Francisco and Oakland, stopped using the company’s testing platform over concerns that it doesn’t adequately protect patient data and that it doesn’t help low-income residents who have the greatest need for testing.
Verily’s platform screens people for symptoms, books appointments, and reports test results. (It contracts out to lab companies who do the actual testing work.) California has around $55 million in contracts with Verily for its testing program, which launched in March with a limited number of sites before expanding to at least 28 counties.
The program was controversial…