Apple's Siri will now provide answers to coronavirus-related questions

According to a report published by CNBC, Apple users can now seek help from the company’s digital voice assistant, Siri to find out if they have the COVID – 19, a disease caused by the novel coronavirus. If you’ve access to Siri, try asking questions like “Hey Siri, do I have the coronavirus?” or “Hey Siri, how do I know if I have the coronavirus?” and Siri will give you the answer.

In order to give you the most appropriate answer, Apple’s digital assistant will ask you whether you’re experiencing fever, dry cough or shortness of breath. And for those who’re experiencing extreme or life-threatening symptoms, Siri’s advice is to call 911.

Under the hood, it’s U.S. Public Health Service, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that are providing Siri’s answers, CNBC notes.

While the new feature is very helpful, Siri’s capability to provide useful answers related to coronavirus related questions are currently limited to the United States. We currently don’t know whether Apple will bring the feature to other markets.

A very similar feature is already available in Google Assistant and it works the world. When you ask questions such as “Ok Google, how do I know if I have coronavirus?”, Google Assistant will provide all the symptoms that are provided by the World Health Organisation. Additionally, it gives you information on which age-group is most likely to be in danger and on the mortality rate. So, if you prefer Google Assistant over Apple’s voice assistant, you can get very similar results by asking coronavirus-related questions by saying “OK Google”.