Covid-19: what happens in Italy? Google tells us

How is Covid-19 going and what consequences has it had on our country? How have the movements and habits of Italians changed? Putting this type of data together is not easy, but we have a tool available that, initially created to give everyone an image of what the lockdown was, has continued over time to track the movements of Android users with active geolocation to return one cross-section of Italy in 2020.



The data are in fact available in the "Reports on community movements", something that Google had announced when the epidemic was at the height of its Italian flare and which now gives us a perspective picture of what has happened, what is happening and, perhaps, what may happen.

Community movement reports

Latest data available they are dated August 30th. This is the picture of the situation, indicating a sort of short-term trend that summarizes a whole series of indicators:

Retail and leisure -10% Food and pharmacies -9% Parks + 48% Public transport stations -14% Workplaces + 6% Residential areas -2% National data, however, are the result of the combination of highly differentiated national data: in Lombardy, for example, the presence in parks reaches + 7%, while Calabria and Basilicata record a share of approximately + 220%. At the same time, Lombardy sees a downward trend of 4% in attendance at workplaces, while in almost all other regions the trend is positive (numbers linked in this case largely to summer holidays).