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Whitney Pennington Rodgers:
Before we really dive in

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to talking specifically about
Google's work

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in the contact tracing space,

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let's first set up, sort of,

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the relationship between
public health and tech.

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You know, I think a lot of people,

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they hear Google and they think of
this big tech company.

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The think of a search engine.

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And there may be questions
about why does Google

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have a chief health officer?

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So could you talk a little bit
about your work

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and the work your team does?

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Karen DeSalvo: Yeah. Well,
maybe I am the embodiment

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of public health in tech.

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Coming together, my background
is I practiced medicine for 20 years,

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though a part of my work
has always been in public health.

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In fact, my first job,
putting myself through college,

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was working at the state laboratory

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in Massachusetts.

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As the story will go, with joy,
wherever you connect it again,

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a Massachusetts theme.

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And I, across the journey
of the work that I was doing

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for my patients

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to provide them information

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and the right care and meet them
where they were medically,

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translated into the work

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that I did when I was
the Health Commissioner in New Orleans

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and later when I had other roles
in public health practice,

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that really is about thinking
of people and community

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in the context in which they live
and how we provide the best information,

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the best resources,

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the best services that are
culturally and linguistically appropriate,

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meet them where they are.

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And when the opportunity arose
to join the team at Google,

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I was really thrilled,

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because one of the things
that I have learned across my journey

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is that having the right
information at the right time

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can make all the difference in the world.
It can literally save lives.

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And billions of people
come to Google every day

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asking for information,

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and so it is a tremendous opportunity
to have that right information

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and those resources to people

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so that they can make good choices,

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so that they can have
the right information,

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so that they can participate
in their own health,

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but also, in the context
of this historic pandemic,

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be a part of the broader health
of the community,

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whether it's to flatten the curve
or keep the curve flat as we go forward.

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WPR: And so it sounds like
that there is this connection, then,

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between public health
and what Google's work is

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in thinking about public education
and providing information.

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And so could you talk
a little bit about that link

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between public health
and public education, and Google.

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KD: Definitely.

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You know, the essential
public health services

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include communication and data,
and these are two areas

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where tech in general,
but certainly Google,

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has the opportunity to partner
with the public health system

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and with the public
for their help more broadly.

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You know, going back
to the earlier days of this pandemic,

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towards the end of January,

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Google first leaned in

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to start to put information
out to the public

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about how to find resources
in their local community,

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from the CDC or from other
authoritative resources.

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So on the search page,
we put up knowledge panels,

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is the way that we describe it,

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and we did develop an SLS alert,

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which is something
we've done for other crises,

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and in this particular historic crisis,

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we wanted to be certain

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that when people went on to search,

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that there was authoritative information,

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which is always there but certainly
very prominently displayed,

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and do that in partnership
with public health authorities.

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So we began our journey
really very much in an information way

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of making certain that people
knew how to get the right information

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at the right time to save lives.

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I think the journey for us
over the course of the last few months

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has been to continue to lean in

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on how we provide information and
partnership with public health authorities

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in local areas,

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directing people in a certain state
to their state's health department,

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helping people get
information about testing.

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There's also been, though,

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a suite of resources that we wanted
to provide to the health care community,

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whether that was for health care providers
that may not have access to PPE.

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For example, we did a partnership
with the CDC Foundation.

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Though the scale of the company,

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and the opportunity for us
to partner with public health

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around things like helping public health
understand if their blunt policies

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around social distancing
to flatten the curve

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were actually having an impact
on behavior in the community.

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That's our community mobility reports.

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We were asked by public health agencies
all across the world,

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including some of
my colleagues here in the US,

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could we help them have a better
evidence-based way to understand

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the policies around social distancing
or shelter in place?

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Which I think we'll talk about more later.

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In addition to that sort of work,
also been working to support public health

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in this really essential work
they're doing for contact tracing,

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which is very human resource intensive,

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very complex,

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incredibly important
to keep the curve flat

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and prevent future outbreaks,

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and give time and space for health care
and importantly science

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to do the work they need to do
to create treatments

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and, very importantly, a vaccine.

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So that work around providing
an additional set of digital tools,

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exposure notification
for the contact tracing community,

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is one of the other areas where we've
been supporting the public health.

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So we think, as we've thought
about this pandemic,

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it's support the users,

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which is the consumer.

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There's also a health care system
and a scientific community

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where we've been partnering.

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And then, of course, public health.

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And for me, I mean, Whitney,

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this is just a wonderful opporutnity

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for Big Tech to come together
with the public health infrastructure.

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Public health, as Joy was
sort of articulating before,

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is often an unsung hero.

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It saves your life every day,
but you didn't know it.

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And it is also a pretty under-resourced
part of our health infrastructure

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globally but especially in the US.

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It's something I worked on a lot
before I came to Google.

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And so the opportunity to partner

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and do everything
that we can as a company,

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and in this case with contact tracing
in partnership with Apple

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to create a very privacy-promoting,
useful, helpful product

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that is going to be a part
of the bigger contact tracing

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is something that we feel really proud of

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and look forward to continuing
to work with public health.

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In fact, we were on the phone this morning
with a suite of public health groups

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from across the country,

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listening again to what would be helpful,
questions that they have.

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And as we think about
rolling out the system,

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this is the way that we've been
for the last many months at Google,

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and I'm just really,

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I landed at a place

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just a few months ago --
I just started at Google --

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where we can have an impact
on what people know

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all across the world,

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and I"ll tell you, as a public
health professional, and as a doc,

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that is one of the most critical things.

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People need to have the right information

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so that they can help
navigate their health journey,

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but also especially in this pandemic
because it's going to save lives.

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WPR: It's great. Thank you.