Google’s Covid-19 experience in Google News: All you need to know

Google reveals ‘Covid-19 experience in Google New’, talks about fact check experimental feature, new Podcast and Assistant features.

Google reveals ‘Covid-19 experience in Google New’, talks about fact check experimental feature, new Podcast and Assistant features. (Google)

In yet another push to keep everyone up to date with the latest Covid-19 news and developments around the globe, Google is using its prowess once again to bring all the local and global Covid-19 based news at one place. This comes in addition to latest guidance from WHO on prevention, symptoms and treatment.

"The new COVID-19 experience on Google News pulls together and organizes all the latest news at the global and local level and provides easy access to the latest guidance regarding prevention, symptoms, and treatment from the World Health Organization (WHO) and other authoritative sources," said Brad Bender, vice president of product management, News.

Google says this new feature is already available in iOS, Android and web platforms in over 200 countries. It will be coming to more countries in future. As explained by Google, the Google News COVID-19 feature will show you stories based on topics such as economy, health care, travel and region.

Expanding Google Assistant's role

The company has even expanded its coronavirus news coverage on Google Assistant so it can now offer the latest updates in more languages. This feature is available globally on mobile devices.

On Google Assistant, we're working to help people access coronavirus news about a particular location, and we're now able to provide more specific answers to requests in English like "Hey Google, play news about coronavirus in New York," adds Bender.

Google experimenting with a dedicated fact check section

Furthermore, Google says it is experimenting on a dedicated fact check section inside the Covid-19 experience that will highlight fact check articles in order to prevent misinformation from spreading.

Covid-19 section in Google Podcast

As for Podcasts, Google has added a dedicated carousel for Covid-19 based podcasts in its recently redesigned apps. "As part of the recently redesigned Google Podcasts app, we've added a dedicated carousel in several languages to connect people to these podcasts to help understand the coronavirus' impact from a variety of perspectives," said Bender.