Skip to main content

Google video thanks health care workers for coronavirus efforts

“How can I help medical workers?”

“Where can I donate medical supplies?”

“How to help nurses.”

“How to help doctors.”

Recommended Videos

People are searching these terms on Google in record numbers as countries around the world continue to battle the coronavirus outbreak.

The web giant posted an emotive video (below) on Sunday, March 29, showing the online inquiries while at the same time paying tribute to health care workers everywhere for their tireless efforts in increasingly challenging conditions.

Thank You Healthcare Workers

The 60-second video is peppered with uplifting comments from medical professionals, some of them a direct response to the search queries from people at home as they seek to learn more about the coronavirus (officially known as COVID-19), and find out how they can support those working on the front line.

“Step by step, we’re going to figure this out, and we’re going to find a way through this,” one health care worker says directly to camera.

Three others deliver a message together, saying simply: “We stay at work for you — you stay at home for us,” a reference to the need for those under shelter-in-place orders to remain indoors to help slow the spread of the virus.

The stirring sequence wraps up with a short montage of regular folks saying thank you to all those involved in the fight against the virus at hospitals around the world, before ending with the message: “Help save lives by staying home.”

It also points viewers to more information and resources via google.com/covid19.

Google has reportedly ditched plans for its annual April Fools’ Day jokes “out of respect for all those fighting the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to an internal email. It said its main aim at the current time “is to be helpful to people,” suggesting employees “save the jokes for next April, which will undoubtedly be a whole lot brighter than this one.” The company has a reputation for daft April 1 gags that in the past have included wacky fake products or quirky games.

As of March 29, there have been 722,649 recorded cases of COVID-19 globally, with 142,224 cases in the United States. Deaths related to the virus currently number 33,983, with 2.485 of them occurring in the U.S.

Trevor Mogg
Contributing Editor
Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…
The best way to dispose of used face masks? Turn them into roads
Recycled face masks

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a real -- and justified -- concern that there weren’t enough face masks in circulation. Companies quickly sprang into action, manufacturing millions of these now instantly recognizable bits of protective gear. Jump forward to the first months of 2021, however, and people now have another concern: That we might have too many face masks, and that this could pose a potential environmental problem.

“The current COVID-19 pandemic is responsible for creating too much rubbish,” Jie Li, a professor in the school of engineering at Australia’s RMIT University, told Digital Trends. “The single-use disposable face masks can be seen in parks, streets, beaches, and almost everywhere. Since the masks are mainly made of nonbiodegradable plastics, these single-use masks will take as long as 450 years to break down in the environment. Urgent action is needed to address the emerging issues related to face mask generation.”

Read more
The best COVID tech of CES 2021: Smart masks and sanitizers
Razer Project Hazel

As a COVID-19 vaccination slowly rolls out across the country, the end of a nearly yearlong pandemic may be inching closer, but there's still work to be done to protect everyone, from frontline health care works to those of us working from home. Fortunately, many tech companies focused their development efforts in 2020 on products that can help combat the spread of the novel coronavirus -- and many of those products were unveiled at CES 2021.

From personal products like smart face masks and sanitizers built for car consoles to business solutions like autonomous UV robots, CES 2021 has been full of interesting, and potentially lifesaving, technology debuts.

Read more
This vending machine gives out COVID tests, not candy bars
this vending machine gives out covid tests not candy bars test

From a distance, it looks like a regular candy bar dispenser, but get up close and you’ll quickly see that this is a vending machine with a difference.

For this one gives out not snacks but free COVID-19 tests.

Read more