Examining the Change of Human Mobility Adherent to Social Restriction Policies and Its Effect on COVID-19 Cases in Australia
1
School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4067, Australia
2
Center for Geographic Analysis, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17(21), 7930; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17217930
Received: 7 September 2020 / Revised: 26 October 2020 / Accepted: 27 October 2020 / Published: 29 October 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Responding to COVID-19 from Local, Regional and Global Perspectives: Challenges and Solutions)
The policy induced decline of human mobility has been recognised as effective in controlling the spread of COVID-19, especially in the initial stage of the outbreak, although the relationship among mobility, policy implementation, and virus spread remains contentious. Coupling the data of confirmed COVID-19 cases with the Google mobility data in Australia, we present a state-level empirical study to: (1) inspect the temporal variation of the COVID-19 spread and the change of human mobility adherent to social restriction policies; (2) examine the extent to which different types of mobility are associated with the COVID-19 spread in eight Australian states/territories; and (3) analyse the time lag effect of mobility restriction on the COVID-19 spread. We find that social restriction policies implemented in the early stage of the pandemic controlled the COVID-19 spread effectively; the restriction of human mobility has a time lag effect on the growth rates of COVID-19, and the strength of the mobility-spread correlation increases up to seven days after policy implementation but decreases afterwards. The association between human mobility and COVID-19 spread varies across space and time and is subject to the types of mobility. Thus, it is important for government to consider the degree to which lockdown conditions can be eased by accounting for this dynamic mobility-spread relationship.
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MDPI and ACS Style
Wang, S.; Liu, Y.; Hu, T. Examining the Change of Human Mobility Adherent to Social Restriction Policies and Its Effect on COVID-19 Cases in Australia. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2020, 17, 7930.
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