COVID-19: Still Staying Home, But More Are Moving About

Below are a set of eight charts showing the changes in people’s mobility in nine Southeast Asian countries, which are in different degrees of lockdown. (No data from Brunei and Timor Leste.)

The changes in people’s physical movement peaked in March and April 2020, which showed sharply reduced movements compared to normal patterns before February 2020. These changes particularly affected travel to work, retail and recreation, while travel to/around residences shot up.

As of May, the curves in the charts for travel to work and recreation appear to be going up – reflecting the easing of some mobility in countries like Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand through May 2020.

Data are from Google, using information from mobile phone users that it says turned on their location history, and Apple, using the number of requests made to Apple Maps for direction. Data visualisation by  Yvonne T. Chua.