Lockdown fatigue in US, Australia as Singapore, Japan stay home, Google data shows
- The latest update of aggregated travel patterns Google collected from its users’ phones pointed to increased disobedience in some places
- In Australia, visits to workplaces and entertainment venues plunged 80 per cent in mid-April but later rebounded when the rate of new cases slowed
The latest weekly update of aggregated travel patterns Google collected from its users’ phones pointed to increased disobedience with lockdown orders in place since March but rising compliance with those issued last month.
The data, posted online by the Alphabet Inc unit late on Thursday, compared daily traffic to retail and recreational venues, parks, train and bus stations, grocery stores and workplaces with a five-week period from January 3 to February 6.
Singapore had apparently controlled the spread of the virus through rigorous contact tracing and surveillance, but the nation-state went into a partial lockdown on April 7 after outbreaks in migrant worker dormitories.
Retail and park visits in Singapore fell about 25 per cent in the first weekend of April. They dropped about 70 per cent by April’s final weekend. Workplace visits, down just 20 per cent at the beginning of April, sank nearly 70 per cent by last week.
Trends were mixed in Brazil, where the virus began appearing in tony neighbourhoods and moved to low-income favelas. Declines in visits to bars, cinemas and similar venues held steady into late April, but workplace and parks visits crept back up.