Cape Town - Beginning in the United Kingdom, Google is launching a new feature on Search to help people find authorized vaccines in their location.
It will also provide timely and accurate information on Covid-19 vaccine.
As other health authorities begin authorizing vaccines, the Alphabet owned company will introduce this new feature in more countries.
"As the world turns its focus to the deployment of vaccines, the type of information people need will evolve. Communities will be vaccinated at an unprecedented pace and scale. This will require sharing information to educate the public, including addressing vaccine misperceptions and hesitance, and helping to surface official guidance to people on when, where and how to get vaccinated,“ said Google in a statement.
Google has taken strides to stop misinformation on the pandemic. The Covid-19 information panels on YouTube, which have been launched in March, have been viewed 400 billion times, making them an important source of authoritative information.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Google has given $250 million in Ad Grants to help more than 100 government agencies around the world run critical public service announcements about COVID-19.
In April, it gave $6.5 million to support COVID-19 related fact-checking initiatives. This has provided training or resources to nearly 10 000 reporters around the world.
Now, the Google News Initiative is providing an additional $1.5 million to fund the creation of a COVID-19 Vaccine Media Hub and support new fact-checking research.
To better understand what type of fact-checking can effectively counteract misinformation about vaccines, we’re funding research by academics at Columbia, George Washington and Ohio State universities.
“The fight against the pandemic and the development of new vaccines has required global collaboration between the public health sector, and the scientific and medical communities. As work begins to vaccinate billions of people, we’ll support these efforts with additional products and features to ensure people have the right information at the right time.”
Earlier this week, a UK grandmother Margaret Keenan, who turns 91 next week, has become the first person in the world to be given the Pfizer Covid-19 jab as part of a mass vaccination programme.
It was the first of 800,000 doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine that is expected to be dispensed in the coming weeks.
IOL TECH