

#Google mobility data android#
Since data is captured only from users who have opted in to ‘location history’ on their Android devices, it raises no new privacy concerns. Methodology for measuring mobility and distancing policiesīeginning late March 2020, Google published a new source of mobility data (Google LLC, 2020) based on the same location data they use to indicate busy hours for restaurants and museums (see Aktay et al, 2020).

Since quantitative data on actual contacts in Europe has not historically been publicly available, we have combined Google data on the mobility of individuals (Google LLC, 2020) with information about the mobility restrictions imposed in a number of EU countries and in the UK in order to evaluate the degree to which restrictions have been effective in reducing contact. In order to gauge the potential impact of easing or introducing COVID-19 restrictions, policymakers need to better understand to what extent the restrictions already imposed have succeeded in reducing contact and thus slowing the spread of COVID-19, as well as their economic cost. A smart targeted containment coupled with an economic restart is needed to curtail human and economic losses. The economy will therefore have to be restarted while COVID-19 is still an active and immediate threat. The availability of effective medication and the emergence of widespread herd immunity in the European population seem to be similarly remote. This discussion was reflected at the European level in the roadmap issued on 15 April 2020 (European Commission, 2020).Ī vaccine is unlikely to be widely distributed before mid-2021 (Veugelers and Zachmann, 2020). As the number of daily new infections and deaths started to level off or even slowly decline in April, a discussion began as to how restrictions can be selectively lifted. The COVID-19 pandemic that hit Europe during the first quarter of 2020 had claimed tens of thousands of lives by the end of April.
