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Home / New Zealand

Covid 19 coronavirus: New Zealanders largely staying home during lockdown, data shows

NZ Herald
18 Apr, 2020 09:22 PM3 mins to read

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There are nine new coronavirus cases in New Zealand and one additional death. The death brings the total toll to 12 and is of a man in Invercargill who died at home and who was linked to the Bluff wedding cluster.

New data from Google shows New Zealanders have been sticking to the plan and the massive drop in public-place activity since the lockdown began has continued.

The internet giant has been tracking people's devices across the world, including in New Zealand.

The number of visitors to places such as parks and beaches dropped 75 per cent in the past six weeks, while workplaces are down almost 60 per cent.

Visitors to supermarkets and pharmacies have dropped a third, shops have lost 88 per cent of their traffic, and bus and train stations are down 82 per cent.

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Movement to recreation and retail areas dived when the lockdown began and has stayed consistently low, Google data shows.
Movement to recreation and retail areas dived when the lockdown began and has stayed consistently low, Google data shows.

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Predictably, the trend for residential places is up, by 24 per cent.

The data, crunched up until April 11, is from Google users who have mobile devices with the location setting switched on, which is switched off by default.

Despite fears people would stop taking the lockdown seriously partway through, the data doesn't show movement increasing over time.

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The exception is grocery shopping - the data shows a gradual upward trend of people heading out to the supermarket, with a spike just before Good Friday, when all supermarkets were shut.

Grocery and pharmacy visits trended up toward Easter, before shops closed on Good Friday.
Grocery and pharmacy visits trended up toward Easter, before shops closed on Good Friday.
NeedToKnow3
NeedToKnow3

Figures from the start of the lockdown showed traffic in New Zealand's major cities was down about 75 per cent.

The Google data is also broken down by region, and some areas have seen slightly less travel than others. However, Google recommends not comparing different regions because of their different characteristics - such as urban/rural divides.

Google also publishes mobility data trends for other countries, most of which have enacted less-strict lockdowns than New Zealand in the face of the virus threat.

In Australia, where some lockdown measures have been enacted, the data shows a steady trend downward as people increasingly stay home.

Travel to places of work is down 41 per cent across the ditch, while retail and recreation visits are down 40 per cent.

But grocery and pharmacy visits are down by just 2 per cent. There are also wild variations between states, each of which has imposed its own rules on residents.

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In the Northern Territories, grocery and pharmacy visits are up 7 per cent, while in South Australia they're up 9 per cent. But in Tasmania, where a strict lockdown has been in force since March, grocery visits are down 22 per cent.

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website

New Zealand's Government has told businesses to begin preparing for the possibility of coming out of level 4. A decision is to be made tomorrow on whether to move out of lockdown on Wednesday night.

A move to level 3 would mean more movement within regions, as people will be allowed to go to the beach for a swim, and more workplaces will be expected to reopen if they can do so safely.

But Kiwis have been cautioned they still won't be allowed to travel outside their region.

- Additional reporting RNZ

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