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. 2020 Jul:6:100167.
doi: 10.1016/j.trip.2020.100167. Epub 2020 Jul 4.

The impact of government measures and human mobility trend on COVID-19 related deaths in the UK

Georgios M Hadjidemetriou  1 , Manu Sasidharan  1 , Georgia Kouyialis  2 , Ajith K Parlikad  1
Affiliations

The impact of government measures and human mobility trend on COVID-19 related deaths in the UK

Georgios M Hadjidemetriou et al. Transp Res Interdiscip Perspect. 2020 Jul.

Abstract

The COVID-19 global pandemic has rapidly expanded, with the UK being one of the countries with the highest number of cases and deaths in proportion to its population. Major clinical and human behavioural measures have been taken by the UK government to control the spread of the pandemic and to support the health system. It remains unclear how exactly human mobility restrictions have affected the virus spread in the UK. This research uses driving, walking and transit real-time data to investigate the impact of government control measures on human mobility reduction, as well as the connection between trends in human-mobility and severe COVID-19 outcomes. Human mobility was observed to gradually decrease as the government was announcing more measures and it stabilized at a scale of around 80% after a lockdown was imposed. The study shows that human-mobility reduction had a significant impact on reducing COVID-19-related deaths, thus providing crucial evidence in support of such government measures.

Keywords: COVID-19; Government restrictions; Logistic growth model; Pandemic; Travel behaviour.

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Conflict of interest statement

Authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Timeline of UK control measures for COVID-19.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Change in traffic in the UK compared to 2019: (A) before the 8th March 2020; (B) after 8th March 2020.
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Deaths related to COVID-19 in the UK: (A) actual values; (B) predicted values, using data until the 25th March; (C) predicted values, using data until the 10th April.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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