Google Launches ‘SOS Alert’ for Coronavirus

In order to deal with the crisis situation in China, Google search engine has taken an initiative to guide and direct the users, who are searching for information and details on Coronavirus, by systematically arranging the results about the safety tips, situation updates and resources released by the World Health Organisation.

Google has announced on its official Twitter handle that the ‘SOS Alert’ on Google is a joint effort with WHO. 

Google tweeted, “Today we have launched an SOS Alert with @WHO, to make resources about #coronavirus easily accessible to users. When people search for info related on @Google, they’ll find the alert atop results page with direct access to safety tips, info, resources & Twitter updates from WHO”.

The new addition of the search engine comes as a part of the Google’s SOS Alerts feature. In this special feature, when an user type Coronavirus in the Google search engine, on the screen user will get the advisory and questions and answers related to the deadly virus strain from the World Health Organisation.

Meanwhile, Google has also donated a sum of 250,000 dollars through its charitable arm Google.org to the Red Cross, China to support in the aid and relief work to deal with the Coronavirus.

Google also tweeted, “To help support relief efforts, @Googleorg has issued a $250,000 direct grant to the Chinese Red Cross. Additionally we have launched an internal campaign inviting Google users to donate. So far, http://Google.org and Googlers have raised over $800K USD”.

So far, the number of deaths in China from the new Coronavirus has reached 213 till Friday, while overall cases across the world are increasing rapidly in an outbreak, which the World Health Organization has already declared as a global health emergency, which is of international concern.

The number of deaths in Hubei, the Chinese province at the centre of the epidemic, had touched 204 and there were more than 9,709 more cases of infection in mainland China this week, the Chinese health authorities said, as the virus spreads globally.

There are now more than 140 confirmed cases of the virus outside mainland China in at least 18 other countries of the world including six in the United States, two in the United Kingdom and one in India. 

For last one week, more than 60 million people have been under partial or full lockdown in Chinese cities. While many countries are sending planes to evacuate foreign citizens who are under the lockdown in Wuhan.