Impacts on Human Movement in Australian Cities Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

ABSTRACT: No studies have yet examined high-resolution shifts in the spatial patterns of human movement in Australia throughout 2020 and 2021, a period coincident with the repeated enactment and removal of varied governmental restrictions aimed at reducing community transmission of SARS-CoV-2. We compared overlapping timeseries of COVID-19 pandemic-related restrictions, epidemiological data on cases and vaccination rates, and high-resolution human movement data to characterize population-level responses to the pandemic in Australian cities. We found that restrictions on human movement and/or mandatory business closures reduced the average population-level weekly movement volumes in cities, as measured by aggregated travel time, by almost half. Of the movements that continued to occur, long movements

SUBMITTER: Weiss DJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10385321 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature