Insight into mobility patterns under COVID-19: A time-sequence-based approach

ABSTRACT

Various measures have been taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Even with widespread vaccination, the control of the epidemic is still difficult due to the mutation of the virus. When an epidemic breaks out, the simplest and most efficient method of control is still social isolation, which greatly affects daily lives and mobility patterns. To study mobility patterns, we leveraged mobile base station data in Shulan, China, during the epidemic. Our main discoveries are as follows (1) With the development of COVID-19, travel volumes and the scopes of trips were gradually reduced. (2) In addition to the government's prevention policy, media coverage of COVID-19 had a huge impact on mobility patterns. (3) Previous studies focused on morning and evening rush hours. However, our results show that humans tend to intensively travel at noon. (4) The travel network was significantly more active in the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak;hence, the possibility of disease transmission was greater. (5) With the development of the epidemic, travel intervals became increasingly longer, and the number of contacts between base stations decreased. (6) By analyzing the temporal path length, we found that some nodes were still active during the epidemic. © 2021 ACM.