Results for the flu vaccine appear in cards, but not Covid. The only working Covid results are hundreds of kilometers away.
Credit: Ryan Whitwam
Results for the flu vaccine appear in cards, but not Covid. The only working Covid results are hundreds of kilometers away.
Credit: Ryan Whitwam
Ars put his hand out to Google for an explanation and received a cryptic and somewhat unsatisfactory answer. “Showing accurate information about maps is a top priority,” says a Google spokesperson. “We are working on solving this technical problem.”
So far we are not aware of other searches on cards that are influenced in the same way. Google still has to respond to further questions about the nature of the apparent glitch, which has wiped out Covid vaccine information in maps and at the same time returned the results for other medical services and immunisations.
The sudden eroding of federal support for routine vaccinations lies in the background with this bizarre problem. When the Trump administration decided to rename the Gulf of Mexico, Google was held on a large scale because of its decision to quickly show “Gulf of America” on its cards, in accordance with the preferred cutting of the administration. With the increase of anti-vaccine actions at the federal level, it is tempting to see a similar, nasty goal behind these disappearing results.
At the moment we have no evidence that the change in Google's search results was deliberately or specifically aimed at COVID immunization, which would be that change in such a ham-fist way. However, it seems a poorly timed and unusually specific “technical problem”. If Google gives further details about the missing search results, we will post an update.
