On January 15, Google developed a dedicated Doodle to create awareness for the COVID-19 vaccines and promote the sense of wearing face masks among people, amidst a massive surge in coronavirus cases.
About the animation:
When a user clicks on animation, the Doodle shows search results on COVID-19 vaccines. The new development by Google comes amid the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination drive in India for people aged 18 years and above. It currently lives in six states, though others are likely to join — depending on the availability of the vaccines.
The Google Doodle encouraging people for the COVID-19 vaccine is available in countries including the US, UK, Canada, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. It features Google logo’s alphabets with face masks and bandages to represent people getting vaccinated.
Once a user clicks on the Doodle, it takes to the search results about the term “COVID vaccine”. The research result page also carries a sidebar that provides details about the COVID-19 jab as well as informs users about where to get the vaccine, who are priority groups, and what’s its effectiveness. The sidebar also has links to the news about the COVID-19 vaccine and the data about its rollout. Users are also shown with the information about the safety and side effects of the vaccine.
Previously, this week the Indian government launched registrations for COVID-19 vaccine for people aged between 18–44 years. The vaccination drive for the eligible people started in a gradual manner earlier on Saturday in six cities, namely Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, and Odisha. However, there is no word on when it would reach other cities, due to the ongoing shortage of COVID-19 vaccines in the country.
Current Covid-19 scenario in India:
According to latest reports, India has recorded 2,58,089 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours. As many as 8,209 Omicron cases have been detected so far, an increase of 6.02% since the previous day. The positivity rate now stands at 19.65%.
As many as 157.20 cr doses have been administered so far under the nationwide vaccination drive. However, India’s ‘R-value’, which indicates how rapidly Covid-19 is spreading, dropped to 2.2 between January 7 and 13.
Google Doodle:
A Google Doodle is product of Google that appears temporarily on special occasions in place of Google’s permanent logo on the homepage. The doodle marks important festivals, people, achievements and holidays. The first-ever Google Doodle was made in honor of the Burning Man Festival of 1998.
The concept came into existence when Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google decided to draw a stick figure behind the second ‘o’ of Google to symbolize the message that they were out of office at the Burning Man festival.
Post which the company came up with the concept of decorating the logo to mark cultural moments and it soon became clear that users really enjoyed the change to the Google homepage.
In the initial phase, Doodles were neither hyperlinked nor animated—they were plain interactive images with hovertext describing the subject or expressing a holiday greeting.
From the 2010s the evolution of the Doodles’ look happened. It was first seen in January 2010 in a post honoring Sir Isaac Newton.
