Public have self-governed lockdown easing

LOCKDOWN easing was gradually happening among the public from the start of April but did not accelerate when the Government lifted restrictions, the first academic study of movement shows.

Using data from mobile phones, a team from Imperial College London found that Boris Johnson’s announcement of lockdown resulted in the entire country reducing their movement by 60 per cent overnight.

After the first week people slowly began to venture outside their homes again, but the Prime Minister’s first easing of the social distancing measures did little to pick up the pace.

There have been warnings that the Government’s original “stay at home” messaging was too effective, leaving people across the country scared to go outside.

Using anonymised data from the Facebook app and O2, broken down into local council areas, the team found that “there was a substantial overall reduction in mobility with the most rapid decline on March 24 2020, the day after the Prime Minister’s announcement of an enforced lockdown.

“The reduction in mobility was highly synchronised across the UK. Although mobility has remained low since March 26 2020, we detect a gradual increase since that time.”

Though the whole country locked down, there was a bigger reduction in urban areas.

People’s mobility began to drop significantly when schools were closed alongside pubs, clubs, restaurants and gyms on March 20. But the biggest fall was after Mr Johnson announced the nationwide lockdown on March 23.

The data covers the period up until May 22, before further lockdown easing was announced.