Silicon Valley may come to the rescue in California’s efforts to reopen after the coronavirus lockdown.
In an interview with CNBC on Friday, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom touted technology companies — once eyed with suspicion in the Golden State — as a key to supporting the state’s “army” of coronavirus contact tracers who will identify and track those who have come into contact with an infected person.
“We’re so pleased with the work Mark Zuckerberg has been doing to support the open access of appropriate data in an anonymized way, in a non-individual or personalized way, including Apple and Google and others,” he said during an appearance on CNBC’s “Fast Money.”
“That is really going to help us with the technology platforms to help us supplement or support the efforts of the individual tracers, an army that we’re all starting to build and train” — and help officials be able to reopen the state.
Newsom acknowledged the reliance is a big change for California, which has often led the nation with policy meant to protect data privacy from the state’s largest tech firms.
“If I was talking to you last year, the big debate in this state and by extension this country was the work California was doing to lead in the privacy space,” he said. “We were referring to some of our data collectors as data frackers in a pejorative term.”
Newsom also praised the state’s relationship with biotech companies involved in the race for effective treatments and a vaccine for COVID-19 - like Foster City-based Gilead, which is researching remdesivir in a clinical trial, and Genentech, which is manufacturing COVID-19 diagnostic tests.
“California with Gilead, not just researching and advancing the trials, but manufacturing here in California, Genentech—birthplace of biotech, life sciences, innovation,” he said. “That is one of California’s great resources, so we hope we are at the front of that curve as well.”
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