Citizen mobility and the growth of infections during the COVID-19 pandemic with the effects of government restrictions in Western Europe

Mobility restrictions have been imposed by many countries in order to curb the spread the novel coronavirus disease. These vary in overall severity but also in the details of which kinds of activity and hence mobility has been permitted or restricted. This study uses the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker to measure the severity of restrictions on mobility in eight Western European countries but adds additional understanding on the nature of restrictions by combining this with mobility data from Google on different activities. The countries were classified into three categories based on the observed changes in mobility patterns, reflecting differences in the approach rather than severity. The paper then assesses the relationships between mobility patterns and the spread of the virus by looking at the growth rate ratio. The time lag for the highest correlation was observed to be in the range of 14–20 days in most cases. In some countries, however, there is no correlation between mobility in parks and spread of disease, suggesting this activity is relatively safe with appropriate social distancing. These findings support the use of social distancing measures in order to limit the spread of COVID-19 and could also be helpful in case of any future outbreaks of similar infectious diseases