Last updated: May 21st, 2pm IL time (GMT +2)
If relevant, please share the information below via this form.
Medical testing center locations where people can drop in
If your country has testing centers with any kind of limitation - for example they don’t have enough tests, they need you to do something before you come, etc. - you can share the locations with us but please note the limitations so we can decide if they are relevant.
Quarantine of certain regions or cities
Confirm the area, what the restrictions are (+ relevant details), and from what date the quarantine is effective.
Road closure information due to COVID-19
It's important for us to only support initiatives that are helpful to our users and make sense for the product and brand, such as:
Road closures
Medical testing center pins
In-client ucomms, for example reminders to only make essential journeys
As such, Waze is NOT supporting push notifications.
Albania
Algeria
Angola
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile
Colombia
Costa Rica
Croatia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Estonia
France
Germany
Greece
Guadeloupe
Guatemala
Hungary
India
Indonesia
Israel
Italy
Jamaica
Kenya
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malaysia
Mexico
Moldova
Monaco
Morocco
Namibia
Nepal
Netherlands
New Zealand
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Serbia
Slovenia
South Africa
Spain
Sri Lanka
Switzerland
Turkey
UAE
United Kingdom
Ukraine
USA
Uzbekistan
Venezuela
We’re in a place of uncertainty right now, with countries reacting differently and governments implementing their own methods to contain the virus. This means that we have to continuously evolve our approach on Waze to ensure we’re helping keep people safe in the right ways.
Please do not share on your social media channels information on what your teams are doing to support the COVID-19 efforts, as this information is likely to change over time. This will help prevent misreporting from journalists who follow these pages.
If you are:
Asked by followers, please feel free to share the following statement:
Waze is committed to helping keep drivers safe during the COVID-19 outbreak by sharing accurate and up-to-date information about road/zone closures, healthcare and testing locations where relevant.
Approached by reporters to comment on the issue, please direct them to waze-comms@google.com.
Q: How is best to respond to Waze for Cities partners if they reach out for options should situations worsen.?
A: Feel free to communicate with partners, but do not make any promises to them. You can direct them to waze-crisis@ for further questions.
Q: If a quarantine area is established by a Waze for Cities partner, can we leverage the evacuation zone polygon feature using copy specific to the situation so it’s not saying it’s an evacuation order, but merely warning that the area is under active quarantine?
A: The evacuation zone feature with the routing support would not be an option for a few reasons, but we could potentially use the pop up like we do in dynamic evacuation zones and change the text there. The text would not be up to the Waze for Cities partner, but they can let us know what message they're trying to convey and we'll take it from there.
Q: If testing locations or support sites or bio-containment facilities, etc. need to be shown for crisis response, are you okay with the usage of the Shelter Pin approach to have them displayed in the app?
A: Definitely. That is something we've implemented already in other places and are looking to source more testing centers from other communities. If you have that kind of data, please email waze-crisis@google.com and we'll create a shelter sheet for you (but not for shelters) so that you can fill in the information.
Note that it is important that we clarify what is the process for approaching these centers as we receive the information, because we don't want to put anybody at unnecessary risk.
Q: In many countries events are often cancelled and those events are set into the app (waze.com/events). We need action to cancel and remove them and make sure push messages are not being sent.
A: We agree. This is an issue we are taking care of currently. If you know about cancelled events or new country regulations about events (i.e No events with more than 100 people like in NL and IL), please let us know, so we will make sure it is being processed.
Q: Some routes including border crossing, can we use ucomms to inform the users about changes in border crossing regulations?
A: In some communities which added closures, most of the border segments are closed. If there is a situation where the borders are open and people can drive through, please provide us with this info. We will definitely think about the option of defining ucomms to support it.
For us to be able to document and monitor the information, please share your updates through this form.
If you need further help, find below your relevant point of contact.
Hezi Cohen - Waze Communities
Noam Reshef - Waze Partners
