swine flu Tag

Give It a Shot: Google’s Vaccination Tracker

Many of us consult Google Maps when planning a road trip, and the application is always useful for locating a nearby pizza delivery place. Apparently, its utility doesn’t end there. With flu season hitting its seasonal stride and concerns about the H1N1 virus still running rampant, the folks at Google have updated their mapping app accordingly.

The new feature, accessible at google.com/flushot, can locate sources for regular flu shots and the H1N1 vaccine as well. In place of the traditional push pin graphics that mark potential destinations on Google Maps, the flu shot tracker substitutes little red and blue syringes. Blue indicates a source for H1N1 shots and red designates seasonal shots. (more…)

Social Media: The Swine Flu Vaccine

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is experimenting with social media sites to connect with the rest of the world to encourage people to get vaccinated for the Swine Flu. The CDC which has partnered with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has created accounts on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, MySpace, along with offering text message services, widgets for your personal website and several other ways of e-communication. 

The CDC has said they want to inform as many people as they can about possible outbreaks of the Swine Flu, and other future diseases.  Dr. Anne Schuchat, member of the CDC said, “We might see another wave after first of the year. It’s going to be important for people to take steps to protect themselves. We can’t predict what’s going to happen.” (more…)

Swine Flu Research Indicative of New Information Trends

Although some of the initial swine flu hysteria has seemed to subside, search trends indicate that it’s still very much in the public consciousness. After hearing multiple stories and stats from both the local and national news, people fired up their computers and turned to the search engines.

People, of course, turned to their most trusted search engine—Google. Within that engine, queries such as “swine flu symptoms” and “swine flu” rose as quickly as the hysteria itself. The following is a list of the top ten visited websites based on these search terms.

1. CDC.gov
2. Wikipedia.com
3. News.Google.com
4. News. Yahoo.com
5. MySpace.com
6. CNN.com
7. Yahoo.com
8. PandemicFlu.gov
9. Facebook.com
10. WHO.int
(more…)