COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally changed how we live our daily lives. Some of us are working from home, we now wear masks while going to public spaces and our movement is restricted.
Google is a company that uses our location data a lot, especially through our mobile phones. Our phones ping our location when we attend points of interest in our countries and all that data is sent to Google servers. This is why Google is a great resource in mapping location behavior patterns of a community.
In April, Google came up with the Community Mobile Reports which provide insights into what has changed in response to policies aimed at combating COVID-19.
In April 2020, there was a 22% dip in workplace pings due to the fact that Kenyans were not going back to their workplaces. Well, that is changing now.
In June 2020, the situation is quite different. According to data gathered by Google, between 7th and 11th June, there has been a 3% rise in workplace pings compared to the baseline in the country. This means that people are now slowly going back to their workplaces and it varies from county to county.
For example, in Nakuru County, there has been a 7% jump and as high as 24% jump in Trans Nzoia of people reporting to work compared to last month. In Nairobi, this figure is a 3% decline and goes as high as a 35% decline in Tharaka Nithi county.
The data is most certainly interesting and it shows that people are slowly trying to go back to normal. We have new curfew timelines that simulate how we used to live before and ‘hot’ areas like Nairobi and Mombasa have their travel restrictions still in place.
