Verily Told Senators That it Has Run More Than 7,000 Tests For COVID-19 and Plans To Keep the Mandatory Google Sign-in (businessinsider.com) 79
Verily, the Alphabet life sciences division that launched its COVID-19 screening and testing program last month, is still under scrutiny from lawmakers over how it is collecting users' data, as well as its plans to expand its test sites outside of California. From a report: At the end of March, five US senators wrote to Verily asking, among several other things, whether its screening website was compliant with the HIPAA Privacy Rule, and whether Verily intended to remove the requirement that all users who screen for COVID-19 have a Google account. Verily has now addressed those questions in a letter sent to the same senators and obtained by Business Insider. In it, Verily assured the senators that any data collected wouldn't be used for commercial purposes or sold to third parties. But it also confirmed that its screening site was not in compliance with the HIPAA privacy rule.
"Verily has focused on the protection of the security and privacy of personal health information since the inception of its Baseline COVID-19 Program," the company wrote. "With respect to its Baseline COVID-19 Program, Verily is not acting as a covered entity or a business associate as defined by HIPAA. As the Program expands, we will continue to prioritize the protection of individual health data. However, in the future if we engage in a program where we do become a covered entity or we are required to sign a BAA we will take all the appropriate steps to ensure compliance with HIPAA."
"Verily has focused on the protection of the security and privacy of personal health information since the inception of its Baseline COVID-19 Program," the company wrote. "With respect to its Baseline COVID-19 Program, Verily is not acting as a covered entity or a business associate as defined by HIPAA. As the Program expands, we will continue to prioritize the protection of individual health data. However, in the future if we engage in a program where we do become a covered entity or we are required to sign a BAA we will take all the appropriate steps to ensure compliance with HIPAA."
We need random antibody screening (Score:1)
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Once this mostly cools off, we will find that some huge percentage of the world's population already had the virus and had no or few symptoms.
Wow. I am really curious about your definition of huge. Statistically, the massive infection rates and transmission vectors themselves indicate there is nothing that even comes close to widespread immunity and that is using a generous definition of widespread.
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It's definitely true more people have it than have been reported. In my circle we are 1 reported (and tested), 3 unreported.
However, it also can't be true that it has gone everywhere already, the death numbers just don't match up. And it doesn't matter if it's .1% or 10%, if it was *everywhere* there would be more death *everywhere*.
*Unless you buy the theory there are random undetected completely innocuous strains all over and have been around since January. Which seems like hope over reality. But here
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If a person catches it now, it can be assumed they did not have it previously. Some percentage of those will show symptoms and get tested, this is a known number.
If the percentage that catch it that show symptoms is low, then a larger number must be catching it. This means the number who already had it must be smaller.
If the number that had it before is smaller, then the percentage that catch it and show symptoms must be larger (since that value is known).
These balance out and they can make reasonable estim
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Once this mostly cools off, we will find that some huge percentage of the world's population already had the virus and had no or few symptoms.
Wow. I am really curious about your definition of huge. Statistically, the massive infection rates and transmission vectors themselves indicate there is nothing that even comes close to widespread immunity and that is using a generous definition of widespread.
While the numbers may seem massive (thanks to the Clickbait Pimps we call "newscasters"), the reality is rather simple. ~2 million people infected is a drop in the ocean compared to a population of ~7 billion. Even if we multiply that number several times over to gain a more realistic viewpoint it's still rather small. We're not cowering in our homes because we know for a fact how deadly it really is (we don't). We're cowering in our homes because our global healthcare system is so fragile and burdened
True, and argues against itself (Score:2)
On the one hand, if a lot.of people are getting infected, they weren't immune when they got infected. On the other hand, if a lot of people got infected, they are immune now - or soon will be.
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If I were single, I might have volunteered to get ill, to offer additional benefits.
My Age and general Health have put me at good odds to make it without serious problems. However, the real problem is that I am not in a bubble. I am in contact with people who have higher odds than I. And I doubt hospitals want me to be in isolation bed, to make me ill just so they can get anti-bodies while there are a number of other sick people who need these beds.
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You may want to read the Chinese studies on fertility effects of Covid19 before volunteering as a youngish male. Or don't, Darwin doesn't care.
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Done.
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The study looked at 215 pregnant women, delivering between March 22 and April 4. Four of these women (less than 2%) had fever or other symptoms of COVID-19 and all four tested positive for the virus.
But this is the interesting part: Of the 210 who did not have symptoms and gave nasal swabs, 29 were positive for the virus. Looked at another way, of the 33 women total who tested positive for the virus, 29 (88%) did not have symptoms.
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So 15.3% in this sample tested positive, and 87.9
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We might have had a few people with it before the first official
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We might have had a few people with it before the first official case that either didn't get sick or didn't spread it around, but the suggestions that the population would have already had some kind of mass immunity or resilience is absurd.
Who made that suggestion? This is called a strawman. You are arguing against something but arguing against something else, that you yourself brought into the conversation.
..and before you say "thats the implication of what you guys are saying" .. its not the only possible implication. Another is that the rate of severe symptoms is significantly lower than currently understood, which isnt ruled out given that only 1 in ~10 seem to show any symptoms let alone severe ones.
The slow rollout of testing (main
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Only three of these asymptomatic/positive women developed a symptom (fever) before they were discharged from the hospital on average two days later. The study didn’t report on what happened over time, and it’s possible that more of the asymptomatic women became symptomatic later on. Finally, one women who had initially tested negative developed fever after she gave birth; when retested three days after the initial test, she was positive, which may speak to the issue of false negatives with testing.
So we don't know how many developed symptoms.
It could easily have been someone at the hospital was infecting them all or they had some other similar shared exposure. It's not a representative sample of the general population.
You would need some way to explain why all the deaths now suddenly, and not earlier in Dec / Jan or Feb. Why did the virus wait until April to start killing everyone? (Ok a few in March, but still way less than April. And March isn't Dec/Jan/Feb either.)
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https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
14% is far from huge.
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A single data point is far from accurate.
It's far from reliable - but it might be accurate.
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This is also in the worst hit town in one of the worst hit countries. Going to be a lot lower elsewhere.
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So far serological studies don't point to this. What evidence do you have that that is what we will find? How would you even explain something like Bergamo where hospitals are completely flooded with patients if the whole world is in a similar infection situation?
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In the US the confirmed cases are about 0.2% of the population. Even if there were 100 times that number of unconfirmed actual cases, it would not be a huge portion of the population, and the virus would still be able to spread quickly enough to overwhelm our health care system. If an actually huge percentage of people had been previously infected, that would provid
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I was saying that in February. Then I realized that you can't have a manufactured crisis continue when the facts are known. Once this mostly cools off, we will find that some huge percentage of the world's population already had the virus and had no or few symptoms.
I eagerly await a link to your peer reviewed study (pre-print is fine--those seem, understandably, more popular right now).
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I'd like to believe this, but the experience of Italy and Spain seems to indicate that this might not be true.
I'll buy into it as a qualified maybe if their new infection rates dip below 100 per day in about 2-3 weeks.
My dream scenario is for reasons we won't understand for quite a while that the virus burns out due to wide spread and asymptomatic cases achieving close to herd immunity.
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This would be fine for most viral outbreaks. However, the health care institutions around the world are busy just treating patients.
It is like bargain shopping for a the best bandage while you severely bleeding. You are at point where you would use a dirty rag to stop you from dying, and figuring you can deal with the infection later.
At this point, we can't really deal with keeping recovered patients in beds or using the doctors for people who are not dying.
I am sure after this thing is over, there will b
Re:We need random antibody screening (Score:4, Interesting)
The last article I read on antibody screening is that it's questionable science. There are a few good tests out there, but very many of them can't distinguish covid19 antibodies from the common cold. Many give not only false negatives but false positives. Finally there is some question as to whether the anti-body they are screening for indicates you are immune from subsequent infection. Unfortunately this is a result of rushing these tests out and skipping a lot of trials, which is arguably necessary but likely to cause bad policies and uncertain accountability over the responsible politicians. It seems like it's not all over, that there is hope, it's just not as soon as will be necessary.
The best path forward that I can see is to send people back to work in stages, with lots of restriction and regulation on work-environment with more substantial required active-illness testing. Trying to compel employers to send in only those employees who must work at their facility versus the ones they simply *want* to work at the facility is going to be challenging, but needs to be in the first step. Monitor this situation, make changes, and then prepare for the next wave. Holding kids, especially young petri dish elementary schoolers out of school for the remainder of this school year seems like a no brainer, but so far only a few schools have chosen to do so. Then there will be the problem of some businesses who necessarily need to be last out of the gate, but who are most directly harmed by these lockdowns: restaurants, movies, entertainment venues and conventions. They are being brutalized, and won't go quietly into the night.
People are absolutely going to die that with better knowledge, wouldn't need to. But all we can really do is stop the most stupid governors from killing a bunch without learning anything from it. Employers are absolutely going to have to be held accountable, and that's not something the US is very good at.
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The health departments know what level of testing and contact tracing they can handle. The politicians just have to ask and then take the advice instead of ignoring it. The process of doing the testing and tracing tells you whether you have it under control and if your system can handle more contacts per detected case and where the holes are. A lot of the base data can't be made public. But the health departments have it. This is a required reporting disease and we have a much better idea of its transm
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Indeed, getting a good idea of just how many people have been infected without developing symptoms is indeed extremely important in assessing its actual risk factor and how we should deal with it going forward.
Which is probably why they're looking for 10,000 healthy volunteers to evaluate exactly that. Collecting truly random samples are a bit of a legal problem in the U.S. Something about illegal search and seizure.
https://www.wusa9.com/article/... [wusa9.com]
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I'm pretty sure you're right. But that's not relevant to a random sampling of the population at large.
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Collecting truly random samples are a bit of a legal problem in the U.S. Something about illegal search and seizure.
Pretty sure the military can do this to service members. Its certainly done stuff like this in the past.
Too bad the military doesn't represent a random sampling of the US population.
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Should've just boarded up that aircraft carrier and opened it in a month to see what happened.
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Here you have one for Scottland that put it at 0.6%: https://figshare.com/articles/... [figshare.com]
So lets say for your own population it is somewhere between 0.5% and 5%. Now what? What policy decision will you make now?
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They're essentially saying that they're taking advantage of Covid-19 to continue monetizing all customers. But then again, so many companies are also doing this in various ways and not just for the positive PR.
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Of course. That's the capitalist way. Hey, you don't HAVE to know whether you have the virus.
And if you do, it's not clear just how much you can benefit (at this point in time). People within 2 meters of you might, but that's irrelevant. Maybe states should establish concealed carry permits for CV.
Not HIPAA but wants health data? Fuck you! (Score:1)
Someone who is actually a responsible corporate citizen capable of securing our privacy can take over. We have no reason to trust these fuckers and every reason given their past and CURRENT behavior to know they're a bunch of fucking liars.
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Alphabet asserts that the program in question is not subject to HIPAA. If that is the case, they don't appear to have any requirement to "abide" by that "well known law". Rather like when handling cucumber peelings in your kitchen you don't have to abide by "well known" laws and rules on handling nuclear waste products.
Are you asserting that Alphabet's program is subject to HIPAA? If so, support your position and explain why you are right and Alphabet's lawyers are wrong.
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No, if the government decides to prosecute Alphabet for violating HIPAA with this program, the government must prove that Alphabet is doing so.
Alphabet, in theory, doesn't even have to present any testimony or evidence to win if they are sure that the government is so wrong that the judge or jury will see that the government is wrong.
If it's a civil case, the government must prove their case by a preponderance of evidence ("more likely than not") and if it's a criminal case, the government must prove their
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HIPAA only applies to Covered Entities: which are
" (1) health plans, (2) health care clearinghouses, and (3) health care providers who electronically transmit any health information in connection with transactions for which HHS has adopted standards."
Note, drug companies and research institutions are not Covered Entities.
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Rather like when handling cucumber peelings in your kitchen you don't have to abide by "well known" laws and rules on handling nuclear waste products.
You're comparing apples and oranges. Better rephrased:
"Rather like when handling cucumber peelings in your kitchen you don't have to abide by "well known" laws and rules on handling food in restaurant kitchens"
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Alphabet asserts that the program in question is not subject to HIPAA.
Generally only healthcare providers are subject to HIPAA. And it isn't just medical data that they need to protect, it's any data. Even releasing the zip codes of your users could hypothetically land you in jail.
So HIPAA doesn't cover medical data, it covers any PII. And it doesn't apply to anyone using medical data, it covers medical providers (and contractors, etc).
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Alphabet asserts that the program in question is not subject to HIPAA.
Generally only healthcare providers are subject to HIPAA. And it isn't just medical data that they need to protect, it's any data. Even releasing the zip codes of your users could hypothetically land you in jail. So HIPAA doesn't cover medical data, it covers any PII. And it doesn't apply to anyone using medical data, it covers medical providers (and contractors, etc).
"any data" !== "PII"
Re: Not HIPAA but wants health data? Fuck you! (Score:1)
https://www.hipaajournal.com/who-does-hipaa-apply-to/ If they transmit any of that information to anyone who falls under HIPAA then they also fall under it even if and that's a big if HIPAA doesn't directly apply to them which any decent lawyer at the DoJ could demonstrate.
But according to you, they're not HIPAA and it's perfectly ok if they sell personal medical info to their
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Actually, no, it is not necessarily the case that transmitting medical or PII information to an entity that is subject to HIPAA when the entity transmitting the information is NOT subject to HIPAA magically results, presumably recursively, in the transmitting entity being subject to HIPAA.
Think about the absurdity of your assertion for a moment. Consider if I see someone I know on the street overdosing and who was now unconscious. Suppose I take them to the ER and tell the doctor who the person is and what
Re: Not HIPAA but wants health data? Fuck you! (Score:1)
In any event, you completely ignored the moral failure of this company by making appeals to subtle reading of text rather than clear intent of Congress when writing the law.
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The clear intent of the law is what the text says. You may like
YOU should re-read the article. You appear to be taking a phrase out of context or something as it doesn't say what you say it does - please provide the exact word quote that you claim supports your position so I can do a text search. I can't read what you say into anything, when taken in context, in the article.
You may be confusing terms because you're not using the article's definition but your own -- this is a common source of confusion by th
Re: Not HIPAA but wants health data? Fuck you! (Score:1)
The intent of the laws are quite clear and have been covered by case law. And you again completely ignore that intent of the law and the complete ethical failure of the entire Alphabet/Google infohegemony because it is inconvenient to your point.
Are you a share holder or employee in some way? You're fighting way too hard for these assholes who have a long his
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Alphabet asserts that the program in question is not subject to HIPAA.
Oops. Seems most people are expecting all health data to be covered by HIPPA et el when it apparently is not.
This is an important lesson for EVERYONE to learn. I hope Google continues to spread the word by making (positive I'm sure) news for themselves with this bullshit during a pandemic no less.
Thanks Google.
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No one who understood HIPAA even casually thought it covered all health data. It was pretty obvious actually -- I can tell a friend anything I want about my elbow surgery and they are not bound by HIPAA. I can even post details of it here along with PII and everyone who reads it is not suddenly bound by HIPAA.
People too often don't understand that the law is what it says, not what they wish it says or what they assumed it says.
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No one who understood HIPAA even casually thought it covered all health data. It was pretty obvious actually -- I can tell a friend anything I want about my elbow surgery and they are not bound by HIPAA. I can even post details of it here along with PII and everyone who reads it is not suddenly bound by HIPAA.
People too often don't understand that the law is what it says, not what they wish it says or what they assumed it says.
I don't give a fuck. Neither does the public.
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Verily is a research organization and the COVID-19 testing is being done under Project Baseline [projectbaseline.com] (where you can also see a variety of studies they are involved in) and that alone likely exempts them. Notice that there is no charge for the coordination of the tests or the tests themselves -- this tends to support the research angle.
Verily is also not providing care, that is being done by other entities (labs, and medical personnel) who are of course bound by HIPAA. Verily does ask some screening questions (de
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Drug companies and research institutions are generally not subject to HIPAA unless the organization is part of an organization that is otherwise a Covered Entity,
HIPAA was about getting hospitals, doctors, and insurance companies to share data electronically.
Much of the law was left vague with the department of Health and Human Services to draw up details if congress couldn't come up with legislation specifying the details. Congress never passed the second part of the law and it was completed administrative
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If they can't abide by the simplest of privacy rules concerning people's personal health data for which we have a very long standing and well known law about how to handle personal health data then they should just be shut down.
Ok fine. But let's shut them down after the pandemic, not right in the middle of one.
Also, don't force them to build a parallel login system. They're a Google/Alphabet company and whatever they build is going to be less secure than Google Sign-in.
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Re:Not HIPAA but wants health data? Fuck you! (Score:5, Interesting)
My employer rolled out one of those "health rewards" programs where they increased our deductibles, but if you participate in a bunch of stupid online activities through some third party website, including giving them private data, you will earn "points" that you can use to pay deductibles. The third party company claims the same bullshit that they are not a "covered entity", and do not have to follow HIPAA.
We really need some general privacy laws that apply to everyone, not just special entities like healthcare.
Can't be trusted (Score:5, Interesting)
Yup (Score:2)
They can't even commit to follow HIPAA. Instead "we will take all the appropriate steps to ensure compliance with HIPAA", which isn't quite the same thing.
Agreed. (Score:2)
A medical test that requires a google sign-in? NO DAMN WAY! Not happening, goodbye.
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You don't read carefully enough. "Protecting" the privacy of individuals does not preclude collection and using data. Privacy advocates have yet to demonstrate a single case of where privacy was actually breached and identifiable data was made available to any other party.
I'd much rather a company which depends on keeping my data and makes money by analysing it collect it than a company which makes money by simply selling it directly.
With all the secrecy all credibility is lost (Score:1)
Politics and greed made this into a global disaster. We are on our own.
Not their decision (Score:3, Interesting)
A company doesn't get to decide that they are not covered by HIPAA. Otherwise no company would. They should have their test kits confiscated and put in the hands of an organization that will perform the correct data protection.
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A company doesn't get to decide that they are not covered by HIPAA.
You're right that it's not Verily's responsibility to decide, that's up to the Department of Health & Human Services. If they think Verily is covered, I'm sure they'll say so.
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A company doesn't get to decide that they are not covered by HIPAA.
Well, 30 years ago you would have said that no company gets to decide that copyright doesn't apply them. But then Google did, and no one stopped them.
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Yeah, but drug companies and research organizations are generally not considered covered entities.
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I need a google account to know if I'm infucted? (Score:3)