Are people in Fort Worth staying home amid coronavirus crisis? Here’s what data shows.
Smartphone GPS data shows that Fort Worth residents have been following orders to stay at home.
The average mobility of the Tarrant County population, as of Thursday morning, had declined 46% compared to the end of February, before restrictions were in place. That data comes from Unacast, an analytics company that has scraped data from tens of millions of cell phone users worldwide.
The decline in movement started happening March 13. That was two days after Tarrant County confirmed its first coronavirus case and the NBA canceled its season and the day Tarrant County and the state declared disasters. From March 19 to March 20, after Gov. Greg Abbott announced a statewide closure of all restaurants and bars, Tarrant County experienced another significant drop in movement.
Other urban counties in Texas have experienced similar declines. Since late February, Harris County’s mobility had decreased 43%, Bexar County’s 46% and Travis County’s 51%. Dallas County, which introduced shelter in place orders before Tarrant, has seen a bigger drop, at 56%. Denton County was down 45% and Collin County 53%.
In Texas counties where stay at home orders have not been announced, the decline in movement is much less pronounced. That includes the counties neighboring Tarrant. Mobility is down 23 percent in Parker, down 33 percent in Johnson, down 23 percent in Wise and down 37 percent in Hood.
The average decline in mobility in the U.S. since late February is 40%. Travel distance in Wheeler County, in the Panhandle, is up 85%, giving it one of the worst social distancing rates in the nation.
According to Unacast Data, the decline in movement likely stems from people working from home, not visiting entertainment venues and restaurants and not traveling. Its data has not been vetted by public health officials, and the data does not interpret whether social distancing measures are stopping the spread of disease.
This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 12:15 PM.
