Google has been experimenting with features to continuously fight the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, they have introduced a new feature for the COVID LAYER in the Google MAP. With this feature, users will know the status of the COVID 19 in their area – or the area to which they are travelling. Google has not yet announced the exact date of the release of this feature. The company however has given information about this feature by tweeting. It is said that the new update of Google Maps will be available for Android and iOS users by this week.
This week, Google will introduce the COVID layer in Maps – A tool that shows critical information about the spread of the pandemic. Users can then make informed decisions about where to go and what to do. According to the information provided in the blog post, Users can view the data in Google Maps by clicking on the layer COVID-19 info after tapping on the layer button at the top right corner of the screen. In this feature, the 7 day new average cases will be shown per 100000 people for the area of the map being viewed. There will also be a label that tells them whether the cases are up or down.
Along with this, Google is also adding a colour coding feature which helps users to identify new cases in a particular region. Trading Maps data appears at the country level for all 220 countries and territories that support Google Maps. Users can also get state or province, county and city level data.
It is known that more than one billion people turn to Google Maps for essential information about how to get from place to place. This feature is especially useful during the pandemic when safety concerns are a top priority. Some features like popular times, live business, COVID-19 alerts in transit and COVID checkpoints in driving navigation – were especially designed to help users stay safe. Google collects data from different sources for COVID-19 cases in an area such as Johns Hopkins, New York Times and Wikipedia. Data sources also include World Health Organization, Government Health Ministries and local health agencies as well as hospitals. Many of these sources already power COVID case information in Search and we’re now expanding this data to Google Maps.
