The last time we took a look at county mobility, it was at the end of April, shortly after the statewide shelter-in-place order was lifted. Since then, a lot has changed, most notably the reopening of businesses throughout the state, and the picture of mobility has changed along with it. Our recent update to the county-level mobility dashboard shows:

  1. Travel around the state has steadily increased since the reopening began and is now only 10% below the baseline period.
  2. The mobility index for the 10-county area remains less than the state average, which means people in the ARC region aren’t traveling as much as people are outside the region compared to pre-shutdown levels.
  3. County mobility levels now range from 59 to 81% of the baseline range, compared to the low week range of  35 to 60% of the reference level.
  4. DeKalb County mobility, which declined the most during shelter-in-place, had the least mobility increase of any county throughout May and remains at 59% of pre-crisis levels.

The line graph below shows the median of the maximum travel distance in each county using data from Descartes Labs. Click here or on the picture for the full dashboard.

Interpreting the dashboard

The dashboard has two elements: a line graph and a bar chart. The line graph shows daily mobility change, and the bar chart uses an index to illustrate total mobility change. The mobility change index is based on comparing the medians of the max-distance mobility of all the samples taken of travel across our region. An index value of 100 for a given date indicates that there is no measurable change in travel between the given date and the average mobility value for the pre-crisis period of February 17th to March 7th. If the index value is less than 100, it means that people have traveled less in the more recent period than they did in the pre-crisis period. For example, a value of 75 would mean that median travel distance post-COVID is 25 percent less the median of the previous period; a value of 50 indicates that only half as much travel occurred.