Coronavirus: Now Find Essential Services Using Google Maps During Lockdown

Google will now show the locations of essential services like food shelters and night shelters on Google Maps in different cities of India to help people easily find them during the ongoing 21-day nationwide lockdown. The tech giant, in a statement, said that it working closely with the central and state government authorities to surface the locations of these relief centres. “To date, across 30 cities, people can now find these locations on Google Maps, Search and Google Assistant,” it added.

Users can search for “Food shelters in “ or “Night shelters in “ in any of these Google products. The service will also be soon made available in Hindi language, the statement said.

According to Google, it is working to provide this service to in other Indian languages over the coming weeks, as well as adding additional shelters in more cities across the country.

“As the COVID-19 situation develops, we are making a concerted effort to build solutions that help people during these times of need,” Google India Senior Programme Manager Anal Ghosh said.

Ghosh said that it is an initiative to provide this information easily to users in need and make sure that they have access to the food and shelter services being provided by the government authorities during the 21-day nationwide lockdown to curb spread of coronavirus.

“With the help of volunteers, NGOs, and traffic authorities, we hope to convey this important information to the affected people, many of whom may not have access to a smartphone or mobile device during this time,” he said.

Meanwhile, the death toll due to novel coronavirus rose to 109 and the number of cases in the country climbed to 4,067 on Monday, according to the Union Health Ministry.

While the number of active COVID-19 cases stands at 3,666, as many as 291 people were cured and discharged, and one has migrated, it stated. The total number of cases include 65 foreign nationals.