Google Doodle Encourages People to Get COVID-19 Vaccine, Wear Face Masks Amid Surge of Cases

Google on Monday featured an animated doodle on its website to once again encourage people to get vaccinated and wear face masks — in the midst of the surge in COVID-19 cases. The Google doodle appears once you visit the search engine's homepage. Clicking on the doodle shows results for the availability of COVID-19 vaccines in your nearby location. Google introduced the same doodle last year — around the time when the second wave of the deadly virus hit countries including India.

The doodle carries a message that reads, “Get Vaccinated. Wear a Mask. Save Lives.” It can be read by hovering over the cursor on the doodle image. The doodle shows Google logo's letters with face masks and bandages along with animated effects to create awareness for the COVID-19 vaccine and promote the sense of wearing face masks.

As per the details available on the Google Doodle website, the doodle is appearing in India as well as Canada, Italy, Lithuania, and Caribbean's Trinidad and Tobago.

Once a user clicks on the doodle, it brings search results for the query “COVID vaccine near me” to show the availability of COVID-19 vaccines in the nearby location.

In May last year, Google rolled out the same doodle in countries including ​​US, UK, Canada, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

The animated doodle has reappeared on the Google site amid the growth of COVID-19 cases around the world due to its Omicron variant.

In India alone, the number of daily new COVID-19 cases reached 2,71,202 on Sunday, with a positivity rate of 16.28 percent, the government data revealed. The positivity rate of cases even grew over 30 percent last week in states including Delhi due to the surge of the virus.

The government is claimed to have administered over 156 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses in the country. It also recently started a vaccination drive for people between the ages of 15–18.