With Covid cases rising exponentially across the country amidst the fear of the fourth wave looming large, Mumbai and Delhi are witnessing a sudden surge in leading Covid-related searches for pharmacies, vaccination centres, ambulance services, and test centres, reports the latest Just Dial Consumer Insights.

Searches for pharmacies dominated all Covid-related searches contributing almost 52% and along with vaccination centres (30%), ambulances (9.25%), Covid Tests (4.4%), and oxygen cylinders (2.5%) made up the top-5 most searched categories on Just Dial. The top-10 cities across the country that generated maximum searches were Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, and Chandigarh.

Delhi topped the searches for pharmacies followed by Mumbai and Bengaluru among Tier-I cities. In fact, Delhi and Mumbai contributed to 51% of the searches that were being generated from Tier-I cities. Month-on-Month (April vs. March) searches in Bengaluru saw a huge jump of 40%, Pune 24%, and Delhi 14%.

Mumbaikars made a beeline for vaccination centres followed by Delhi and Hyderabad. Bengaluru saw the maximum rise (month-on-month) in demand for vaccination centres at 14% and Pune at 11%.

Commenting on the trend, Prasun Kumar, CMO, Just Dial, said: “As Covid cases have started increasing again in some parts of the country, we are witnessing increase in search trends related to health services on Just Dial. Pharmacies have been dominating most of the online searches and Justdial has aggregated neighbourhood pharmacies on the platform with credible information so that they are just a call away for our users. Besides pharmacies, over the last two years we have also aggregated a whole lot of emergency health service providers across India’s Tier-1 and Tier-II cities to encourage overall digital adoption.”

Tier-II cities like Chandigarh, Jaipur, Nagpur, Indore, and Patna generated maximum searches for COVID-related health services as demand remained stable. Chandigarh, Lucknow, and Jaipur generated maximum searches for pharmacies among Tier-II cities. Searches in Chandigarh grew by 20% and Jaipur saw a 4% growth.

Nagpur topped the demand for vaccination centres with Indore and Jaipur in the second and the third place respectively.  Demand for ambulances in Chandigarh shot-up by 36% in April vis-à-vis March and topped the demand across Tier-II cities ahead of Lucknow and Jaipur.