Staying at Home: Mobility Effects of COVID-19

Abstract

We combine GPS data on changes in average distance traveled by individuals at the county level with COVID-19 case data and other demographic information to estimate how individual mobility is affected by local disease prevalence and restriction orders to stay-at-home. We find that a rise of local infection rate from 0% to 0.003% is associated with a reduction in mobility by 2.31%. An official stay-at-home restriction order corresponds to reducing mobility by 7.87%. Counties with larger shares of population over age 65, lower share of votes for the Republican Party in the 2016 Presidential Election, and higher population density are more responsive to disease prevalence and restriction orders.