• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, March 17, 2020

The website created by Verily Life Sciences, Google’s sister company, requires visitors to sign into an existing Google account or create a new one to schedule an appointment to be tested for coronavirus, according to a notice on the company’s website.

The idea is to enable Verily to collect answers to the screening survey, contact the person to schedule testing, and deliver results. The website, however, became overwhelmed in just hours and reached capacity in one day.

Visitors and users of the website must speak English. The program initially only launched in the San Francisco Bay area.

Microsoft’s Covid-19 Tracker estimates 4,740 confirmed cases in the United States, with a total of confirmed cases in California of 454. San Francisco Bar area residents went into lockdown on Tuesday, with 7 million ordered to seek shelter at home and only leave for “essential" reasons.

Supermarkets, pharmacies, banks and gas stations remain open. Restaurants are open only for takeout. Gyms, bars and wineries will close.

In a virtual Advertising Research Foundation town hall meeting, Rex Briggs, founder of Marketing Evolution, said: “This is not the flu,” and Covid-19 is moving much faster.

He urged those on the call to follow a self-quarantine approach, based on the data he crunched. Based on this modeling, if self-quarantine doesn’t occur, about 780,000 Americans will die of Covid-19 in 2020. Some who survive might have a permanently reduced lung function, which will force health companies to create new services.

Briggs, in his presentation, said the exposure to symptoms timeline is between five to 21 days. Symptoms to death between 13 days and 40 days. Symptoms to recovery is between three and four weeks.