With Covid cases not ready to slow down, Google is also looking to help people by showing regions that are the most affected by the Virus using Google Maps.
Google is introducing the new feature called ‘COVID Layer’ that will show critical information about the COVID-19 cases in regions. It will show you the region which is the most affected or the ones which are less affected so you can make your decisions about where to visit, wisely.
Google explains in its blog post about the how-works, stating “When you open Google Maps, tap on the layers button on the top right-hand corner of your screen and click on “COVID-19 info”. You’ll then see a seven-day average of new COVID cases per 100,000 people for the area of the map you’re looking at, and a label that indicates whether the cases are trending up or down. Color 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. “
Colour coding here refers to how the colour of that region will help you identify about how much the region is affected. These colours means:
Grey: Less than 1 case
Yellow: 1-10 cases
Orange: 10-20 cases
Dark orange: 20-30 cases
Red: 30-40 cases
Dark red: 40+ cases
Google also explains that it gets its data from multiple sources including the New York Times, Johns Hopkins, 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.
“While getting around is more complicated these days, our hope is that these Google Maps features will help you get where you need to be as safely and efficiently as possible. The COVID layer starts rolling out worldwide on Android and iOS this week”, the statement read.