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00:00Well thank you so much for joining us. It's great to have you on the show. Just want to start off with a gut check on where you think we are in the pandemic. Do you feel like the pandemic is coming to an end at this point or are we still in a dangerous time given what's happening in places like India and beyond. You started with such a complex but important question. And I think the reality is it's just as you say it depends on where you live where you are in the swing of the pandemic. A great reminder that nobody is safe until everybody is safe and that we have to pay attention to the global nature of the spread of coping. And so certainly for us as a company where we're thinking and working a lot in India and in parts of the world where we need to help get good information out but we're also where we have a lot of employees and employee families and are making sure we're doing everything we can to you know do our part to help in that pandemic. But I'm hopeful in some other places like the US. One thing we've learned is that Google is arguably one of the most powerful public health platforms in the world. What is the lesson that you have taken away about Google's responsibility here to amplify the right information. It's such an important responsibility. It's not only in pandemic but other times as well certainly throughout the course of the pandemic. We have seen people coming to us asking questions about covered about testing about vaccines where to get care. And so we consider that an opportunity to get the right information right time to people to save lives and do that in partnership with public health authorities like the World Health Organization or the CDC just as you say to make sure we can amplify their important public health messages because they're trying to push that out. People are coming to us and trying to pull information. And so we see that we can help you know meet that information with people when they're looking for it and make sure it's the highest quality possible. Well and how do you dispel the confusion you know with the CDC coming out and saying you can wear masks inside. You know some some businesses people families are still quite frankly confused knowing that kids aren't vaccinated yet. And a lot of people might not ever get vaccinated at all. Know. Here's the good news. The good news is the science is increasingly telling us that we have really high performing vaccines not just in clinical trials but also in the field. So what we're learning is that the vaccines of it that are approved in the US are highly protective not only from death and hospitalization but even from catching and transmitting the virus to others. So people should feel very optimistic about where the science is getting us with vaccines. As you say we're doing great on getting the population vaccinated though we still have a lot of work to do to make sure all communities are reached rural black Latino acts as well as we're just starting to vaccinate kids. So we're not finished across the line. But we really the scientific achievement in this I don't think we can emphasize enough how much we we should be grateful for for the fact that we have a tool to not only prevent individuals from getting sick but to really begin to address community level spread of the vaccine. So good movement. And I'm very optimistic about what we're seeing. You joined Google in 2019 as chief health officer which was before the pandemic. How has the pandemic changed the size and scope of your role. I joined in December of 19 and we were already starting to see some cases later that month in parts of Asia where we have offices but really like most of the world it was in in late January and February when we began to realize that we had to. Sometimes as I say put down our pencils and turn our attention to the really critical things that we're facing the world. And knowing that people were going to come to search to ask him ask questions about coronavirus work with W.H. O the CDC others to get their information front and center. If you think about it even back then we were just learning about how important it was to wash our hands. We were learning about what flattening the curve was. So as a public health person you know I I really just was grateful that I could be here at this time to help make sure that people were getting the right information because in an in any crisis including a pandemic communication is job one. So people know how to protect themselves and how to protect their community. So we've been very focused on the pandemic though also making sure that we're not losing track on the other important work we want to do globally to improve people's health. Now the return to office debate is still ongoing. It seems like Google was initially going to take a more traditional approach ask employees to come back to the office. But now the company has come out and saying yes some people can work remotely for the longer term. Why the change. How did Google come to this decision. Well as you say you know very early in the pandemic we saw that we needed to be a part of this flattening the curve opportunity that we needed to make sure that everything we could do if we should we should. In order to not be a link in the chain of transmission. And so we went to work from home early. We've learned that we can do that and that every way that it's possible for us to be conservative going back in the office that we should. But we've also learned that it's important for us to try new new ways of working. So as we think about the future of work we want to be as inventive and creative as we have been in the prior iterations of work. I mean creating really incredible campuses that lend themselves to creativity and innovation and collaboration. So we want to make sure we have that kind of environment for our workforce that will thrive and need that kind of space. But also wanting to learn to understand what is this future look like and how does technology enable companies like ours and others to continue to be successful in the kinds of products and services and research work that they want to do. So we're on a journey like many other companies to see that we're doing right by our employees and make sure that we can do the work that we need to get done. But do it not only safely but in a way that is really going to promote well-being for all of our employees. Is Google going to insure or require that all employees get vaccinated. We are doing everything we can to get our employees and our extended workforce vaccinated and dependents as well. So that includes standing up fights for vaccination partnering with others to get that done all over the world. Very much encouraging employers to get vaccinated again in the Google community as well all around the world. Right now we're we're not in a place where we want to require that to go back in the office. We think that there's still enough momentum that there are people who want to get vaccinated in places like the US. There's supply recognizing though of course not every place in the world there's enough supply to meet demand. So we're just again trying to carry along in this journey and encourage not requiring but we're just making sure that we're doing everything we can to as we say in Silicon Valley reduce the friction. So it's easy enough to get it to get a vaccine and try to help be a part of again a big community solution. How do we help as many people get vaccinated as possible at some point. Do you think it could be a requirement or should I mean this is something that a lot of companies are thinking about right now. How do we navigate this. It's you know it's interesting. Such an interesting question from a public health standpoint first of all and you know that in in some parts of the world like the US we don't tend to mandate vaccines except in some circumstances though public health historically could have in other parts of the world. It's the opposite stance. People people really do not think it should there should be an individual infringement on liberties though from a transmission standpoint public health its goal is to get to herd immunity basically. Right. Which isn't everyone. It's as everyone's been sort of tracking on the numbers it's probably somewhere around seventy five percent of the population. And given the uptake and interest of vaccination if we can as a society make it as easy as possible for people to get vaccinated we reach a point where enough of the population is vaccinated that you don't have to force or require people who for religious or other reasons may not want to get vaccinated. And that's from just pure public health lens. The goal is to try to get us to that herd immunity. No not only as an employee base but really also helping community get vaccinated all around the world. Interesting. That's so fascinating. Meantime at I know you have unveiled this new high power dermatology tool. Tell us a little bit more about how it works and why this was a priority. I'm so excited about this about this. This tool is my primary care physician and so for you know the decades of practice people come into clinic or call me on the phone and say I've got this thing and I don't know what it is. And you know I'm a great internist. I'm not a dermatologist. Right. So I also often need to refer people to DERM. This is just a wonderful tool that my patients could use to understand what is the potential conditions that they have. And then when they come into the office environment or when they call me they're just much more prepared for a conversation because they've been able to do some additional research. And that just makes always for a much better engagement with my patient. So I love that it's an A.I. tool that can generate this list of derm conditions. I especially love that it's you know for consumers to empower and engage and give them a sense of agency so that they have that knowledge moving forward. And I love that it's a light tool that is available from the browser. Basically it turns your smartphone or computer into the device if you will to be able to understand it's not the extra that you have to get. So I'm excited about the potential. I think it's clearly something people were interested in getting more knowledge about third condition genes. And so we just see this as a great way to be helpful when people are coming in search and on that kind of information and give them and work more and more of that relevant authoritative content so they can make better decisions for themselves. Well and since you are a primary care physician I'm curious about how this rise in more digital more telehealth that way. We've all done marvels in the last year is going to change the medical profession or ever. I mean now when I make a doctor's appointment I have to ask wait is this in person. Can I choose to just do it online please. I know. You know we we've had a lot of technology for a lot of years. And I think we've been especially in the Western context very anchored in this idea that health care happens in a place a physical place that is a brick and mortar that our patients have to drive to during the hours when we're available as clinicians and with the pandemic taught us is that we can use this technology to meet people where they are. It allows people when they don't need to come in person to have an option. It allows for that. The in between visits that I do in primary care to check your labs to do it do some follow up to make sure that the new medication that we started is sitting well with you. We can do that stuff virtually very often especially if there's ways you can measure your pressure your blood pressure your blood sugar. So I'm very excited about this omnichannel approach that we're going to be able to maintain and give more patients. I think we thought you know questions about how to make sure we can do it for everyone. But certainly medicines embraced it. Consumers have embraced it. And I hope that we continue because it's one of the tools in the tool box to make sure that we're being as accessible as available as possible to get people the great care that they need.

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Google Employees Don't Need Vaccine to Return to Work

Dr. Karen DeSalvo, chief health officer at Google, discusses the search giant's efforts to amplify accurate information about the Covid-19 pandemic ranging from symptoms to vaccination locations. She also says Alphabet encourages workers to get vaccinated, but they're not required in order to come back to the office. She speaks to Emily Chang on "Bloomberg Technology." (Source: Bloomberg)

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