These Triangle counties are the best and - worst - in NC at staying home amid coronavirus
For the past several weeks, county and state leaders have recommended and ordered people to stay home, limit traveling and practice social distancing to help slow the spread of COVID-19.
But are people listening?
Well, it’s a mixed a bag, according to Unacast, a company that uses social mobility data from smart phones to look at how much people are traveling in counties across the nation. It grades counties and states based on how much their residents have traveled since state and federal officials first began to encourage social distancing and isolation.
In the Triangle, Wake County and Durham County were both given “A’s,” as distance traveled in both counties has decreased by more than 40 percent. Chatham County was given a “B,” after distance traveled decreased between 30 and 40 percent.
And Orange County was given a “C.” Travel distance there decreased between 20 and 30 percent.
Johnston County, was among the most poorly graded counties in the state. It currently has a “D,” after travel distance decreased by only 15 percent. North Carolina as a whole is a “C.”
The most recent data points are from March 26. Bigger cities in North Carolina tend to have the biggest decrease in travel. For instance, Mecklenburg also has an A. At least one rural county, Northampton, has seen a 3 percent increase in travel, although travel statewide has gone down since various counties and then the state announced stay-at-home orders.
According to the company’s website, it does not identify any individual person, device or household.
“However, to calculate the actual underlying social indexing score we combine tens of millions of anonymous mobile phones and their interactions with each other each day — and then extrapolate the results to the population level,” it states.
There are currently about 1,500 positive cases of coronavirus across the state and nine North Carolina residents have died.
