The world has been trying to deal with Coronavirus outbreak since the start of the year. Google and other tech companies have also been coming with solutions that can help people in managing the outbreak better.
On Friday, Google has rolled out a new update which adds the COVID layer in its Maps. Google Maps is a free app from the tech giant and helps people in navigation. This layer will show critical information about Covid-19 cases in an area people plan to visit in 220 countries.
This update will start rolling out worldwide on Android and iOS this week and show colour-coding that maps out areas infected with COVID-19 cases.
To view this data, people will have to open the Google Maps app on their phone and tap on the layers button on the top right-hand corner of your screen and click on “COVID-19 info”. Google maps will show a seven-day average of new COVID cases per 100,000 people for the area of the map along with a label that will indicate whether the cases are trending up or down.
The colour coding also helps you easily distinguish the density of new cases in an area. Trending case data is visible at the country level for all 220 countries and territories that Google Maps supports, along with state or province, county, and city-level data where available.
In its blog post, Google mentioned that the data featured in the COVID layer of Google Maps comes from multiple authoritative sources, including Johns Hopkins, the New York Times, and Wikipedia. These sources get data from public health organizations like the World Health Organization, government health ministries, along with state and local health agencies and hospitals. Most of this data is already being fetched in Search and now will be made available in Maps.
More than one billion people turn to Google Maps for essential information about how to get from place to place – especially during the pandemic when safety concerns are top of mind.
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