Xoogler here, left pre-pandemic. Google has always been very data-driven. It just seeks data that support management's ideas of how they want to run the company. Despite ample evidence showing that cramped, loud working spaces both decrease productivity and increase sick days for coworkers (because flu and the common cold, and other reasons), management went for densification to meet growth targets and cut real estate outlays. Google workspaces would have been the absolute perfect super spreader spaces for COVID. TBH I feel a bit of schadenfreude for their deliberate choice to create that environment, and this article saddens me to see that Google hasn't learned much.

I, for one, hated the densification and tight working environments, but I didn't have the "data" to make a hill of beans difference.