Health & Fitness

Coronavirus Social Distancing Cuts Movement By 40% in IL: Report

An analysis of mobile location data found people in some Illinois counties reduced their average distance traveled by more than 50 percent.

A woman waits for the light to change before crossing a nearly deserted Michigan Avenue on March 20 in Chicago.
A woman waits for the light to change before crossing a nearly deserted Michigan Avenue on March 20 in Chicago. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

CHICAGO — As of the first day of Gov. JB Pritzker's stay-at-home order, Illinois residents had reduced their movement by an average of 40 percent compared to a month earlier, according to an analysis of cellular location data.

The "social distancing scorecard" aims to compare how well different parts of the country are heeding efforts to slow the spread of the new coronavirus through evaluating the change in average distance traveled. The scorecard assigns a letter grade to each state and county, with areas that reduce movement by 40 percent or more given an "A" and those down by 10 percent or less getting an "F."

While the cutoffs of the letter grades are somewhat arbitrary, public health officials have emphasized the need for strict physical distancing measures to prevent hospitals from becoming overwhelmed by a surge in patients needing care.

Find out what's happening in Across Illinoiswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In Illinois as of Saturday, the counties with the largest reduction in average distance traveled were Edwards, Crawford, Macon, Pope and Menard counties. Each had cut its movement by more than half.

As for the Chicago area, Cook County residents reduced their movement by 44 percent, DuPage County was down 45 percent, Kane County reduced average movement 46 percent, distance traveled in McHenry County was down 48 percent, and both Lake County and Kankakee County were down 50 percent. In Will County, average travel distance was reduced by 38 percent, so the county only received a "B" grade on the scorecard.

Find out what's happening in Across Illinoiswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The state's lowest-scoring counties — those where average distance travelled did not significantly decline, instead rising in some places — included Washington, Fayette, Johnson, Massac and Cumberland counties.

As of Wednesday, the Illinois Department of Public Health reported 19 people have died in the state out of more than 1,800 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new strain of the coronavirus that first emerged in humans in December in Wuhan, China.


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"The development of our COVID-19 Toolkit will empower organizations to unearth reliable and valuable information to guide critical decision making and planning in relation to COVID-19 containment," Unacast co-founder and chief executive officer Thomas Walle said in a release. "We created the Social Distancing Scoreboard as the first of many tools to help organizations and businesses better understand public behavior in a post COVID-19 world."

Walle said the company would continue to update its scorecard and toolkit "with the hope of ultimately saving lives." Planned additions include a "value impact tracker" to evaluate changes in traffic patterns to specific places and a measurement of "origin-destination flux" to look at changes in movements patterns for larger geographic areas.

Data for the scorecard comes from mobile apps that collect location data, as well as public datasets. It combines anonymous location and device data from tens of millions of devices, according to the company.

The federal government is in talks with tech companies like Facebook and Google about using location data the companies track in an effort to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, according to the Washington Post.

Dr. Allison Arwady, director of the Chicago Department of Public Health, said a 40 percent decline in travel was not sufficient to stem the spread of the coronavirus in Chicago.

Speaking at Wednesday's press conference on Chicago's response to COVID-19, she said it was necessary to reduce movement by 75 percent from normal levels to keep the local health care system from being overwhelmed.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and interim Police Superintendent Charlie Beck said the city would begin issuing citations to those in violation of the governor's stay-at-home order. Now that the "educational phase" is over, repeat offenders could be subject to arrest.

"Beginning today, one warning," Beck said. "After that, you will be cited."


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