The COVID-19 pandemic is worsening with passing days, when the whole world thought that by the end of year cases will come to halt it is happening vice versa instead everyday there are swathes of cases being reported with no sign of vaccine it is now imperative to live and work in this virus driven world with all protective norms in place. That is why Google Maps is bringing an all-new update of the Covid-19 filter for the Android and iOS users which could be applied while travelling outside to check which locality or area in the city is safer.  

Since pandemic is showing no signs of receding with a mounting pressure of getting back to work this latest feature of Google might be a way to protect ourselves. This latest feature is known as ‘COVID layer’ will showcase the scale of outbreak in national, state and local city areas as you zoom in and out.

This feature will show a seven-day average of new Covid-19 cases per 1, 00,000 people in a particular region. It will also portray the increase or decrease in the number of cases through an arrow mark on the screen.

This feature can easily be enabled by opening the maps and tapping on the ‘Layers’ button at the top-right corner of the app. The upcoming update will be rolled out in all the 220 countries which have Google Maps support and will be available by this week.

Earlier in June, Google also rolled out an update to alert people on a public transit route if in case a particular route was affected by several Covid-19 check-in points. It also alerts about the level of crowd on a specific transit line in a public transport system.

To further tackle the spread of the disease, Google has partnered with Apple to develop contact tracing technology to help health officials monitor the number of people who have come in contact with an infected person.

Google claims to have gathered the data for showing the infection-related trends and information on Maps from John Hopkins University, The New York Times and Wikipedia which they gather from World Health Organization, Ministry of Health along with local hospitals.