Cell Phone Data Provides Surprising Insight into Pandemic Progression

Americans are itching to go.  We’re just waiting for the moment that the rest of this great nation decides to move forward the way in which Texas already has, and reopen the economy for business – no holds barred.   We’ve been cooped up for a year, we’ve suffered losses in every realm of existence, and the coming of several effective COVID-19 vaccines has us chomping at the bit to go out and about.

So, when the floodgates open, it will likely be epic.

Unless, of course, we’ve already begun?

Americans have begun leaving home more often than before the coronavirus pandemic took hold, reflecting a pent-up desire to venture out as new cases have declined, according to University of Maryland researchers tracking the movement of cellphones.

The number of daily trips per person – when a cellphone moved more than a mile from home – had hovered around 90 percent of pre-pandemic levels since rebounding over the summer. But by mid-February, after a slight slump amid a surge in new cases, the number regularly started to exceed pre-pandemic travel.

And just how big a difference are we talking about?

By the first week of March, the number of trips surpassed those taken each day in the same week last year, before stay-at-home orders kicked in, by as much as 13.6 percent.

The Biden administration has suggested that every willing, adult American will have access to a coronavirus vaccine by the end of May, and that ambition and enthusiasm appears to be contagious.