Chicagoans were ordered to stay at home starting last weekend and, according to a company grading social distancing, the city’s getting an A.
Both Cook County and the state of Illinois have high marks as of Wednesday on the “Social Distancing Scoreboard,” an interactive project based on location data collected by the company Unacast that roughly measures whether or not people are heeding the advice of officials to “flatten the curve” of the spread of the coronavirus.
The scores were determined by the change in average distance traveled compared with before the coronavirus outbreak. If residents are staying put aside from the occasional trip to the grocery store or pharmacy, the dip in travel would be apparent in the data.
A more than 40% decrease leads to an A, with grades dropping from there. Anything less than a 10% decrease — or an increase — ends in an F.
Wyoming, with a 0% change in travel, got an F.
Illinois had a 40% decrease by March 21, according to Unacast’s board. Cook County saw a 44% decrease.
The counties doing the best in the state include: Edwards, Crawford, Macon, Pope and Menard. And the worst: Washington, Fayette, Johnson, Massac and Cumberland.
The entire country has a B, overall.
Dr. Allison Arwady, director of the Chicago Department of Public Health, talked about the study and expressed concern about the number of people on the lakefront during her daily “Ask Dr. Arwady” Facebook Live event Wednesday.
She noted that it’s safe for people to be out for walks and she encourages exercise with proper precautions but worries about crowds of people doing that at the same time. The city will be taking steps to limit crowds, Arwady said.
“When the lakefront is looking like the middle of summer and everyone’s wanting to go there, we are not social distancing effectively,” she said. “We’re going to be doing some more patrolling there, some more trying to help folks stay away.”
Arwady said that Chicago is on a “big, steep, upward trajectory” in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, and the city is hoping to slow that rise. “We’ll put in additional orders if we need to,” she said, referring to the city’s stay-home order.
“I’m glad we’re in better shape than the rest of the country, but it is not enough,” Arwady said, noting the 40% decline in city travel. The goal, she said, is to get to a 75% reduction to flatten the curve enough to prevent city hospitals from being overwhelmed.
“I need Chicago at an A+. Maybe an A++,” Arwady said.
As for the data, the company says the tools don’t identify individuals or devices, but scores are calculated by combining “tens of millions of anonymous mobile phones and their interactions with each other each day” and then extrapolating the results.
Thomas Walle, CEO and co-founder at Unacast, said the data is “a very good representation of how people are moving around.”
“Our sample is between 5 and 15% of the population, depending on the state or the county,” he said.
Walle said Unacast is working to update the few-days lag in data and they eventually hope to see correlation between decreased travel and cases.
“The reason we built this was to create awareness,” Walle said. “People talk about social distancing but people really have to think about it and then need to change their behavior pretty drastically.”
Unacast says it plans to continue to improve its social distancing models.
Walle said one upgrade will look at the difference in travel to essential locations, like a pharmacy, and nonessential trips. “And that’s a big factor to see if people are adhering and following social distancing guidelines,” Walle said.
On Wednesday, three more deaths related to COVID-19 in Illinois were announced, bringing the state’s total to 19 deaths. There are now 1,865 confirmed cases in Illinois, with more than 1,000 of them in Cook County.
