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Where Are People in Connecticut Willing To Go During Delta? Here’s Google’s Mobility Report

August 26, 2021

Last we checked with the all-knowing Google, Connecticut residents in April were hesitant to visit shopping centers, grocery stores, restaurants and even outdoor spaces like parks and beaches.

Google’s latest COVID-19 Community Mobility Report, created Tuesday, shows residents extremely eager to visit parks — enticed, no doubt, by summer weather — more comfortable in grocery stores, only slightly more inclined to dine at a restaurant and still more likely to be working from home.

It’s a complex portrait after the state appeared ready to emerge from the worst of COVID, only to see the Delta variant spread from county to county. Yet Connecticut remains well-positioned as the country’s third most-vaccinated state, with more than 65 percent of the eligible population fully vaccinated. The Food and Drug Administration’s full approval this week of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine could convince even more people to get vaccinated.

“I believe in the goodness of people,” says Dr. Ajay Kumar, Hartford HealthCare’s Chief Clinical Officer, “and I would imagine that the people will follow through on the FDA’s approval and seek vaccination at this time.”

The Community Mobility Report, prepared for public health officials, uses information from Google Maps and other sources to track movement. Google uses as a pre-COVID baseline the median value for the five-week period from Jan 3–Feb 6, 2020.

Here is the latest report, with results from the April 25 report in parenthesis.

  • Residential: Down 3 percent (up 5 percent).
  • Workplace: Down 9 percent (down 13 percent).
  • Transit stations: Up 11 percent (down 18 percent).
  • Parks: Up 140 Percent (down 4 percent).
  • Grocery and pharmacy: Up 30 Percent (down 11 percent).
  • Retail and recreation (includes restaurants, shopping centers, theme parks, libraries and movie theaters): Up 4 percent (down 10 percent).

Google’s data dump also breaks down the state by county. People in Fairfield County (up 47 percent) were returning to transit stations in a big way, perhaps an indicator of more commuters going back to work in New York. Hartford County transit stations, meanwhile, were down 18 percent. New London Country, with a military and defense contracting presence, was the only county with more people (up 9 percent) in the workplace compared to the pre-COVID baseline.

To see the full report, click here.