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IMAGE: States' residential mobility over time with highlighted period of government stay-at-home order. The red line represents the state-wide mobility data generated by Google (a composite of all the counties within...
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Credit: American Journal of Preventive Medicine
Ann Arbor, December 10, 2020 - Quantifying the mitigating impact of social distancing on the spread of COVID-19 is critical for evaluating the efficacy of social restrictions and informing future health policy decisions. While most studies have used government stay-at-home dates in their models, new research finds that individuals actually changed their behavior in reaction to the presence of COVID-19 in their state a median 12 days before a government lockdown. This underestimates the impact social distancing has in controlling the spread of the virus. The research, appearing in the