COVID vaccine locations vanish from Google Maps due to supposed “technical issue”

Results for the flu vaccine appear in Maps, but not COVID. The only working COVID results are hundreds of miles away.

Credit:
Ryan Whitwam

Ars reached out to Google for an explanation, receiving a cryptic and somewhat unsatisfying reply. “Showing accurate information on Maps is a top priority,” says a Google spokesperson. “We’re working to fix this technical issue.”

So far, we are not aware of other Maps searches that have been similarly affected. Google has yet to respond to further questions on the nature of the apparent glitch, which has wiped out COVID vaccine information in Maps while continuing to return results for other medical services and immunizations.

The sudden eroding of federal support for routine vaccinations lurks in the background with this bizarre issue. When the Trump administration decided to rename the Gulf of Mexico, Google was widely hectored for its decision to quickly show “Gulf of America” on its maps, aligning with the administration’s preferred nomenclature. With the ramping up of anti-vaccine actions at the federal level, it is tempting to see a similar, nefarious purpose behind these disappearing results.

At present, we have no evidence that the change in Google’s search results was intentional or targeted specifically at COVID immunization—indeed, making that change in such a ham-fisted way would be inadvisable. It does seem like an ill-timed and unusually specific “technical issue,” though. If Google provides further details on the missing search results, we’ll post an update.