Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports

To help measure the impact of social distancing, Google has provided COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports that chart movement trends over time at the following places:

• Grocery & pharmacy: Mobility trends for places like grocery markets, food warehouses, farmers markets, specialty food shops, drug stores, and pharmacies
• Parks: Mobility trends for places like local parks, national parks, public beaches, marinas, dog parks, plazas, and public gardens
• Transit stations: Mobility trends for places like public transport hubs such as subway, bus, and train stations
• Retail & recreation: Mobility trends for places like restaurants, cafes, shopping centers, theme parks, museums, libraries, and movie theaters
• Residential:Mobility trends for places of residence
• Workplaces: Mobility trends for places of work

Reports in PDF format are available for a variety of countries and regions. For the United States, individual reports are available further subdivided into state- and county-level data.



Changes for each day are compared to a baseline value for that day of the week, where the baseline is defined as the 5-week period from January 3 to February 6, 2020. The data come from users who have opted in to Location History for their Google Account. Google recognizes that anonymity may be compromised in sparsely populated areas. In such instances, they state, “Not enough data for this date: Currently, there is not enough data to provide a complete analysis of this place. Google needs a significant volume of data to generate an aggregated and anonymous view of trends.”

In addition to providing reports in PDF format, Google also allows visitors to download data in CSV format. Data geeks rejoice! More information is available in this blog. What does community mobility look like in your area?