Lately, America has been having some bad times.
As its economy tries desperately to continue functioning amid riots and the constantly evolving COVID-19 situation, each state has its own fluctuating set of rules about how to protect yourself and others from the virus.
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| Map of the USA, colour coded to show the approximate number of COVID-19 cases per capita on 1st August 2020 according to Wikidata. [image source] [data source] |
A study published last Thursday (July 30th) used movement data from millions of people to show that if the states work together, they can reduce the movement of people without having a blanket lockdown.
In other words, the United States of America must be united.
Smartphone and social media data were collected from cellphones and Facebook*, and analysed to track the movement of people between states. The researchers used the data to figure out that the movement of people in one state depended on the movement of people in other states.
When only one-third of a state's peer states (states that are geographically or socially similar) adopt shelter-in-place policies, the overall movement of people into and out of that state is reduced to a level equalling the effect of that state adopting a shelter-in-place policy.
Unfortunately, the states are not well coordinated at the moment. Each state has its own ideas, and there are clusters of locked down states and clusters of open states. This is not helpful. The states must work together, locking down strategically to halt the spread of the virus.
*It's worth noting how Big Data can sometimes work FOR the people, and not against them, by helping scientists study our behaviour as opposed to trying to make poor people poorer by advertising things at them that they want but can't necessarily afford.
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