Here's How Well Long Island Is Complying With Stay-At-Home Order

LONG ISLAND — As the spread of coronavirus accelerated in recent weeks, more and more Americans have come under state or local stay-at-home orders and advisories. As of Sunday, more than 300 million Americans in 41 states — including New York — have been asked or ordered to stay home.

The purpose of these orders and advisories is to minimize the spread of the virus, which is highly contagious, although the scope of the orders varies by state and locality. Compliance with them varies widely, too, as Google has demonstrated with its community mobility reports, and by the business data firm Cuebiq, which compiled its COVID-19 Mobility Insights. Both aggregate location data from cellphones to track the movements of large numbers of people.

As of March 29, Google reports that nationwide movement to retail and recreational locations, including restaurants, shopping centers, movie theaters and the like, dropped 47 percent against a baseline set for the weeks Jan. 3 to Feb. 6.

Travel to groceries and pharmacies fell 22 percent; to parks, to beaches and gardens 19 percent; to transport hubs such as bus and train stations, 51 percent; and to workplaces 42 percent. Mobility to places of residence showed the only increase, of 16 percent.

On Long Island, which has been under a stay-at-home order since March 22, compliance is higher.

As of March 29, Google reports that movement to retail and recreational locations dropped 66 percent against the baseline in Nassau County and 58 percent in Suffolk County. Travel to grocery stores and pharmacies fell 34 percent in Nassau and 31 percent in Suffolk. You can see the full report for New York here.

In general, compliance is higher in urban areas of the Northeast, upper Midwest and West Coast than in rural areas, the South and the Great Plains, the data shows.

The data comes with several important caveats:

• Tracking location does not show how often or how closely people come into contact with each other, and is not necessarily a predictor of infection.
• Rural residents often must travel farther to get groceries or other necessities, while city dwellers don’t have to move far to infect others.
• Higher-income residents often are able to comply more easily than low-income residents, whose jobs do not always allow them to work from home.

Public health experts agree that abiding by stay-at-home orders and advisories is critical to slowing the spread of the virus, or in “flattening the curve” of infection. Such measures are deemed so important that authorities have instructed police to break up large gatherings of people, and even begun arresting those who violate stay-at-home orders. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday that the state will crack down on violators of social distancing policies, increasing the maximum fines from $500 to $1,000.

The methodology of the Google report can be found at the end of this document.