"Stay-at-home orders have nearly halted travel for most Americans, but people in Florida, the Southeast and other places that waited to enact such orders have continued to travel widely..."

"... potentially exposing more people as the coronavirus outbreak accelerates, according to an analysis of cellphone location data by The New York Times. The divide in travel patterns, based on anonymous cellphone data from 15 million people, suggests that Americans in wide swaths of the West, Northeast and Midwest have complied with orders from state and local officials to stay home. Disease experts who reviewed the results say those reductions in travel — to less than a mile a day, on average, from about five miles — may be enough to sharply curb the spread of the coronavirus in those regions, at least for now."

From "Where America Didn’t Stay Home Even as the Virus Spread" (NYT). Graphs and maps at the link. Lots of bright red in the south, where the worst places have people averaging "travel" of over 3 miles a day.



It's interesting that our phone data is being used this way, but what's the problem if people are going out for a 3-mile walk? The data the NYT is using may have a rough correlation to whether people are getting together in groups, but I know I go out and get in an average of 3.5 miles, and I'm not doing anything that's not within Governor Evers's rules, which say:

Individuals may leave their home or residence... To engage in outdoor activity, including visiting public and state parks, provided individuals... [at all times as reasonably possible maintain social distancing of at least six (6) feet from any other person]. Such activities include, by way of example and without limitation, walking, biking, hiking, or running. Individuals may not engage in team or contact sports such as by way of example and without limitation, basketball, ultimate frisbee, soccer, or football, as these activities do not comply with Social Distancing Requirements. Playgrounds are closed.

To get to a state park, you've got to drive your car, but that's just you in your car. You're not exposing yourself or others when you're in that interior space. Does the NYT really want to promote the idea that we're covidiots if we don't stay inside our homes?

ADDED: From the comments over at the NYT:

I'm a Fed, but live in rural Oklahoma. I normally travel 33 miles each way to work in Oklahoma City M-F, but we're on telework order, so that part is down to zero. However, most of you can't imagine the distances we have out here. The nearest decent grocery store is 16 miles away, and a Walmart is about 22. So, if we go out food shopping once every two weeks, that could be 44 miles for that alone. The maps therefore are missing once critical element (which is admittedly VERY hard to compute), and that would be "Average Essential Travel Distance". That should be the denominator in a ratio, with the numerator being "Average Miles Traveled". To be fair, I do statistics for a living, and I wouldn't even begin to know how to estimate that denominator, other than to ask a sample of individuals to take a guess at it.

But most of the commenters over there are picking up the message that I think the NYT intended to send: The people who vote for Republicans are ignorant and/or unwilling to act for the good of the whole.