Observing the silent world under COVID-19 with a comprehensive impact analysis based on human mobility

Shaobin Wang,Chuanglin Fang,Haimeng Liu,Zheye Wang,Yun Tong,Jun Wu,Yupeng Fan

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-94060-4

Abstract

Since spring 2020, the human world seems to be exceptionally silent due to mobility reduction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. To better measure the real-time decline of human mobility and changes in socio-economic activities in a timely manner, we constructed a silent index (SI) based on Google’s mobility data. We systematically investigated the relations between SI, new COVID-19 cases, government policy, and the level of economic development. Results showed a drastic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on increasing SI. The impact of COVID-19 on human mobility varied significantly by country and place. Bi-directional dynamic relationships between SI and the new COVID-19 cases were detected, with a lagging period of one to two weeks. The travel restriction and social policies could immediately affect SI in one week; however, could not effectively sustain in the long run. SI may reflect the disturbing impact of disasters or catastrophic events on the activities related to the global or national economy. Underdeveloped countries are more affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Highlights

Since spring 2020, the human world seems to be exceptionally silent due to mobility reduction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic
We examined the potential relations between silent index (SI), new COVID-19 cases, and government policy using Panel vector autoregression (PVAR) and Impulse response function (IRF)
How silent the world was in 2020 globally, nationally and at specific places? First, we constructed the silent index (SI) framework to assess the variation of human mobility at the county level based on Google’s mobility big data. The name of this index is inspired by Silent Spring, which described the absence of the sound of birds and insects due to the overutilization of pesticides in the environment

Summary

Introduction

Since spring 2020, the human world seems to be exceptionally silent due to mobility reduction caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Internet use has increased rapidly to compensate for the reduced face-to-face interactions[3] These non-pharmaceutical interventions effectively reduced the spread of the v irus[4,5], the massive lockdowns and reduction in human mobility have inadvertently affected the global economy for business, transport, manufacturing, tourism, entertainment, and r estaurants[6,7,8,9]. In this work, we aim to estimate the global impact of COVID-19 based on human mobility and to investigate the relations between mobility, new COVID-19 cases, and government policy across countries over time. We demonstrate that a large-scale and holistic picture of the global shock of COVID-19 can be obtained based on the real-time daily mobility data with fine temporal granularity

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion