What is on these maps?
On these maps, you can find the change in traffic as measured by the Descartes Labs across the USA. We extracted the Georgia data and calculated the change in traffic compared to an average weekday in February before we had COVID measures.
How do interpret this?
A negative number means that traffic has reduced compared to the average weekday in February 2020. For example, -39 means that the county has 39% less traffic than on a normal pre-COVID weekday.
A positive number means that traffic has increased compared to pre-COVID traffic, but that is seldom the case.
The greener the areas are, the more the areas have been able to reduce traffic. The pinker the areas are, the more their traffic is like it would have been on any pre-COVID weekday.
Why are certain days suddenly almost completely green in the video?
Good observation! If you were able to pause the video on those days, you might have noticed those are Sundays. Some Saturdays were pretty green as well, but Sundays clearly have much less traffic. This is the case on a normal Sunday as well, of course, but during the lockdown, we have been especially good at staying at home.
Is this data anonymous?
Yes. The data that Descartes Labs has gathered, is anonymous. No one using this data has access to any personal information.
What is the unit of the numbers?
There is no unit for percent change as the data have been normalized by the Descarteslabs; the original measure was in kilometers traveled.
Where can I read more about the background of these numbers?
You can read the paper on the methodology here:
https://www.descarteslabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/mobility-v097.pdf