Online search on vaccination centres goes up by 16X, informs report

New Delhi : As the country is witnessing a spike in the coronavirus spread driven by its Omicron variant. Online searches for vaccination centres went up by 16X and local pharmacies dominated almost 85 per cent of the searches on Just Dial in the health category across the country’s 1000 towns and cities, a report from the latest Just Dial Consumer Insights indicated.

As India surpassed the daily tally of over a lakh COVID cases, pharmacies, vaccination centres, ambulances, COVID test centres, and oxygen cylinders remained the five most searched health categories on Just Dial. Year-on-Year demand for all searches in the health categories grew by 19 per cent during the quarter ending December 2021.

With pharmacies dominating the majority of the searches, the YOY growth rate for searches around pharmacies stood at 15 per cent. This demand remained stable in tier-I markets while in tier-II markets, it grew by 37 per cent. Among tier-I cities, Delhi, and Mumbai, the two worst affected metros due to the third wave, contributed to around 56 per cent of the online searches for pharmacies. Bangalore (46 percent), Pune (42 percent), and Hyderabad (27 percent) were the three cities that saw maximum demand growth rate. Among tier-II towns and cities, Lucknow, Chandigarh, Nagpur, Nashik, and Patna were the top-5 cities generating maximum demand.

Mumbai and Delhi are witnessing maximum demand for vaccination centres. Searches originating from the two cities comprise around 53 percent of the demand from tier-I cities. Jaipur, Patna, Chandigarh, Vadodara, and Nagpur were the top 5 tier-I cities that saw maximum searches for vaccination centres.