New study examines travel trends during COVID-19 lockdown

A recent study of network mobility data suggests it may be necessary to re-examine the government's region-based approach to COVID-19 travel restrictions (Aleks Marinkovic / Pexels). By Robert Rombouts, Special to Western News November 25, 2021 When Ontario implemented regionally targeted lockdowns at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a common presumption was that travel from highly restricted regions to those with low levels of restriction will increase, negating the intent of the lockdowns. Now, new research is showing that wasn't necessarily the case. Researchers, led by Western University's Jed Long, used de-identified and aggregated network mobility data to determine the effectiveness of Ontario's regionally targeted lockdowns to reduce movement during the pandemic. The research found the lockdowns did not significantly reduce mobility from one public health region to another. Long and his research team measured inter-regional mobility (outflows) between public health regions. They used network mobility data from TELUS' Data for Good program through its Insights platform, a privacy-preserving system for analyzing mass-mobility patterns within Canada.