In trying times like this, everyone should pitch in to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Two of the biggest tech companies — Apple and Google — have recently offered a helping hand by sharing their mobility reports to help public health officials and local governments understand the movements in the communities.
These two mobility reports are slightly different, with Google’s report focusing on movement in places while Apple focuses on foot, car and public transit traffic. If there’s a region with insufficient/insignificant levels of data, both Google and Apple will omit data of the said region.
According to Google’s report, there has been a huge decrease in mobility at transit stations and also retail and recreation areas — both over 80% when compared to baseline. In conjunction with that, mobility in residential areas has increased by 31% from March 15 onwards.
As for Apple’s mobility trends report, both Malaysia and Kuala Lumpur’s rate of foot and car traffic have decreased — but the rate is more significant in the city instead of the country. It’s safe to assume that KL is the most affected city, as there are no data for the other states in Malaysia.
Good to know that Malaysians — at least the majority of us — are obediently staying at home. Meanwhile, if you’re someone who wants to get out of the house “for fun”, I’d suggest against that because the restrictions for the third phase MCO should be tighter, meaning the police will be less lenient and more thorough in verifying your purposes of getting out of the house.
