Tracking link between seismic waves, virus

Teen uses seismology to examine effectiveness of lockdowns in cities

After the COVID-19 pandemic launched much of the world into lockdown, Artash Nath had a question: Is human movement actually lower than it was before?

With months of lockdown ahead of him, the Grade 9 Toronto student was inspired to find out whether Ontario’s sweeping legislation actually kept people home. He turned to seismology, studying the Earth’s vibrations for significant changes that could indicate fewer people leaving home.

While seismology is usually used to monitor the movements of the Earth, Nath, 14, has harnessed it to examine the effectiveness of lockdowns in select cities across Canada. On Feb. 9, Nath launched monitormylockdown.com, a website he is continually updating with new data points and analyses of select seismic activity in Canada.

He chose nine cities across Canada — Halifax, Quebec City, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Whitehorse, Vancouver and Victoria — with seismic monitoring stations. Since the stations were located near or in the cities, they could reliably pick up seismic noise caused by humans.

Vibrations decreased in all nine cities between March 1, 2020 and the middle of May 2020.

In Montreal, the change was significant: Vibrations decreased by 55 per cent after lockdown measures were implemented.

On weekends, seismic activity dropped in seven of the nine cities, with only Toronto and Whitehorse not experiencing a drop over the weekend, something Nath said could be attributed to the monitors being located further out of the cities and the existence of several active mines around Whitehorse.

“I wanted to do this by finding a way to measure the effectiveness of the lockdown in reducing human movement in Canadian cities,” Nath explained.