In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Google published an early release of COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports. These reports provide data-driven insights into changes happening due to work from home, shelter in place, and other initiatives to flatten the pandemic curve.

The reports utilize Google Maps technology to identify trends over time by geography while protecting personally identifiable information. At the initial stage, the reports will cover 131 countries and regions. The goal of this project is to help public health officials in combatting COVID-19 by providing aggregated and anonymized data of movement trends. Furthermore, Google aims to provide a more detailed outlook on the essential needs of communities by identifying transportation and destination patterns.

Additionally, Google is collaborating with epidemiologists to better understand and forecast the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, this type of data can provide unique advantage for predicting epidemics, urban and transit infrastructure planning, as well as people’s needs and responses to emergencies.

For more information on related topics visit the HSDL Featured Topic on Pandemics and Epidemics or view other resources related to emergency preparedness.  Please note that an HSDL login is required to view some of these resources.

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