As many of you might have heard by now, Google has recently released a set of reports called Community Mobility Reports. “The reports chart movement trends over time by geography, across different categories of places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential.” These “aim to provide insights into what has changed in response to policies aimed at combating COVID-19.”

I was taking a look at the most recent version of the reports (as of March 29) for a few countries. Here are some snapshots:

India:

India announced its lock-down on March 24 and we can see an almost vertical decline in traffic to most public places, with a corresponding increase in Residential traffic.

Australia:

Australia’s graphs reflect a very different trend. It shows a more gradual decline in traffic to public places compared to India’s.

Japan:

Japan has not yet declared a lock-down and that reflects in their charts. Interestingly, transit stations have seen a 41% decline in traffic and the decline in the middle of February.

South Korea:

South Korea was one of the first countries outside of Chine to see a large number of Covid-19 cases. However, they did not announce a lock-down, but aimed to control the spread with extensive testing. And this reflects in their charts above.

Italy:

Italy was one of the first countries to announce a nation-wide lock-down (on the 9th of March). The drop in traffic numbers post that are truly staggering. It’s interesting to see that Retail & Recreation and Transit Stations had started seeing a drop even before that date.

Spain:

Spain announced its lock-down a few days after Italy and the effect was instantaneous.

Germany:

Germany has not imposed a strict lock-down and their numbers reflect that. It is interesting to see the trends for Parks.

France:

France announced a lock-down on March 17th and we can see a steep drop after that date, including to Parks.

Great Britain:

Great Britain only announced a lock-down on March 24th, and the traffic started declining immediately. Interestingly, Transit Stations and Workplaces had started seeing a decline even before that date.

Ireland:

Ireland only announced a lock-down on 28th March. Again, traffic to most public places had started declining well before that date, except for Parks.

US:

The US, similar to Australia, displays a more gradual decline in traffic, starting from early March. It is to be noted that this data is only till the 29th March. It is possible that more recent data might demonstrate more declines.