Google says it is ramping up its efforts to provide reliable and authentic information on COVID-19 in addition to offering features across its different apps and services to help people, even as the Government of India extended the nationwide lockdown till May 3 to curb the spread of the deadly virus. The global search engine giant has listed all the ways that it’s helping India fight the Novel Coronavirus in a detailed blog post.
To begin with, Google has introduced a new feature to indicate food and night shelters across the country across Google Maps, Google Assistant and Search apps. The feature currently includes over 30 cities and more than 1,500 food and night shelters have been identified on these apps all over India. The query for these shelters is supported in both english as well as Hindi. Google is also working to include other Indian languages in these queries and also add other shelters to its products.
Google has also increased its efforts to counter misinformation and is providing latest information, updates and advice only from authentic sources like the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and other international health organisations in its various products. If a person searches for Coronavirus, they would find a page with consolidated information on COVID-19 and also find top results from Union Health Ministry, and other authorities.
Google-run video platform Youtube also has a dedicated Coronavirus news shelf which has links to latest updates on the disease from authoritative media. Google says it is working on removing videos that have been reported for violating YouTube policy and are also removing videos which are discouraging people from seeking medical help or are propagating unproven methods of fighting with COVID-19.
Lastly, Google has launched a dedicated COVID-19 India website, and the English, Hindi and Marathi versions of the website are available, with more to be out soon.
