LEAVING HOME?
Data shows region is staying put more than rest of Pa.
“Montgomery County also had the largest percentage of residents who have increased their time at home and have avoided the workplace, according to the Google data.
Apparently, folks around here are good at hunkering down and staying put.
Residents of Berks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties are doing a better job of staying home and not going out than most of Pennsylvania.
That’s according to data analyzed and released by Google which tracked the location of people’s cell phones in the last few weeks.
According to the most recent analysis, updated April 6, the number of Pennsylvanians
leaving home to shop for items other than groceries or medicine, or to recreate, has dropped by 50 percent since the baseline was set on Feb. 23.
However, in Montgomery County, where county officials have issued daily reports urging residents not to leave home unless absolutely necessary, that number dropped by 58 percent, the largest of any of the four counties.
The efforts, aimed at keeping local hos
pitals and first-responders from being overwhelmed by a wave of new infections, seem to be having their intended effect.
“I’m happy to report that thanks to your good work at staying home, our hospitals continue to have empty beds both in their regular units and in their intensive care units. This is great news and we hope that this situation persists,” Montgomery County Commissioners Chairwoman Valerie Arkoosh, said Friday.
Arkoosh, who is a medical doctor, re-emphasized the social distancing recommendations of public health officials who say the measures can help prevent the spread of the virus and prevent hospitals and first responders from becoming overwhelmed.
She warned against letting those efforts lax over the holiday weekend.
“I just can’t stress how important this is. This is not the time to let up. I know how important these holidays are but by people coming together to worship we could undo the weeks of hard work that we have all put in,” Arkoosh said.
The warnings seem to be sinking in.
Montgomery County also had the largest percentage of residents who have increased their time at home and have avoided the workplace, according to the Google data, which was originally compiled to help health officials target areas where the stay at home order was being ignored most.
When it comes to avoiding transit stations, parks, the grocery store and the pharmacy, Chester County residents are doing better than the other three counties.
Delaware County residents, by contrast, have followed the statewide trend and actually increased the amount of time spent at parks, but at nearly twice the statewide increase.
The data for the four counties shows little change from the data the week before, suggesting that area residents have consistently reduced trips outside the home.
The data is just one avenue the tech world is helping the fight the spread of the virus.
“As global communities respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increasing emphasis on public health strategies, like social distancing measures, to slow the rate of transmission,” wrote Karen DeSalvo, chief health officer for Google Health.
“We have heard from public health officials that this same type of aggregated, anonymized data
“This information could help officials understand changes in essential trips that can shape recommendations on business hours or inform delivery service offering.
— Karen DeSalvo, chief health officer for Google Health