Mobility in Germany is declining
THE MIRROR
During the shutdown from November 2nd, the prime ministers wanted to keep schools and shops open.
The result is known: the number of confirmed infections and deaths continued to rise.
The people's contacts apparently hardly decreased.
This is also shown by mobility data that researchers at Humboldt University have been calculating since the beginning of the pandemic.
People moved a little less in November than in September and October.
However, the decline was nowhere near as steep as in the first wave in late March.
Accordingly, the contacts should not have decreased so much to slow down the infection process.
The shutdown was tightened from December 16.
From this day daycare centers, schools and many shops across Germany had to close.
In Saxony, where the number of infections was and are particularly high, the shutdown was in effect from December 14th.
And in fact, at least mobility then fell significantly by the end of December - see the following diagram:
The researchers at Humboldt University calculate mobility using anonymized data from Telekom and Telefonica customers.
This includes the movements of cell phones around the clock.
Movement is when a mobile phone leaves a radio cell and does not change its new position for at least 15 minutes.
How people move, whether on foot, by train or by car, does not matter.
The day with the most movements in the last four months of 2020 was September 21.
On this day, an average of 198 million movements were recorded over seven days.
On December 28, the Monday after Christmas, the average was only 111 million - a decrease of 44 percent.
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Munich Airport on December 26th
Photo: Matthias Schrader / AP
The fact that mobility fell from December 16, of course, is also related to the tightening of the shutdown.
When millions of children and young people no longer go to school or are no longer being taken, many movements cease to exist.
The closure of many shops also meant that people were less on the go.
However, the sharp decline up to the end of the year should also have something to do with the public holidays.
Many people had taken vacation at the end of December.
It is already becoming apparent that mobility has increased again in the first few days of the new year.
In addition, it is still unclear how the family reunions over the holidays will affect the number of infections, as fewer tests have been carried out between the years.
Reliable figures are expected in mid-January.
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