Federal Provincial Territorial COVID-19 web management working group/October 27 2020

Updates

40% have the downloaded the COVID alert - a surprising number, but very pleasantly surprised

New map will be released soon, broken down by municipality, so users can see more detailed information about COVID-19 alert levels for their area

Blog post published with NWT on the use of images for content that has yet to be translated

Ontario - working with Google to ensure maps contain accurate details about COVID-19 testing locations across the province(Chris Bell)

Context: Google relied on Clinia as their original data provider, not the government
Ontario gov (ontario.ca) is the source for up-to-date location details for COVID-19 testing centres, operation hours, but people were using Google to find the information, so it wasn’t always correct
Approach: Leverage Ontario’s Google My Business Agency Account to claim ownership of 150 covid-19 testing locations + update hours of operations
standardize internal management of location data
adopt Google’s location data standards
Connected with Google’s Global Partnership team to ensure Ontario remained the data source for our data (not Clinia or other sources)

Next step: Best approach to give Google the information on testing within pharmacies (as the government doesn’t own them) + whether they can affect Apple’s reporting (Maps currently uses API from Yelp)

What strategies are you using to manage and control your COVID IA?
Susan Harper (PHAC): Content is moving so fast, so focus on navigation and structure

Nova Scotia: Curious about how others are adding services like surgery, drawing blood, gov other services?
Christina Carrigan (NWT): All of the government services are listed in high level ways: available; not available, altered (or linked to originating source)

Send an email (prompt) to all of the comms staff daily to ask if there are any changes to services
Once a week, health authority will send an update on changes

Are you beginning to plan web content for this? Do you have challenges, great ideas, new pieces you have to develop?

Lauren (Ontario): Recently updated the site with information - will send link
Nova Scotia: Video of candle being passed as a notion of no in-person services, but that remembrance can still happen virtually/at home

Do you have maps on your sites (COVID-related or other)? Do you know if they are working well for your users? How are you handling accessibility (postal code, regions)?
David Cox (Ontario): not specifically COVID related, but we realized our guidance for maps has gaps, and not clear on how accessible our maps are

Switched to RGIS, and don’t have an accessibility solution yet but looking into it (screen reader best options, etc)
General interest in discussing maps further and hearing more from Quebec about the map for COVID-19 alert levels