VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — If grades could be assigned for how well people socially distance, how would different areas of Virginia rank? How would Hampton Roads fare?
It's a phrase people have heard all year: "6 feet apart," one of the Centers for Disease Control's guidelines for mitigating the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Since the early days of the pandemic, data company Unacast has been using their data tracking models to analyze people's movements during the pandemic.
“Shopping patterns, travel patterns, etc. It was mainly used for real estate, insurance, and city planning. However, with the pandemic, we saw a role that we could help," Unacast CEO and co-founder Thomas Walle told 13News Now.
The information is used for a "Social Distancing Scoreboard," which assigns grades for states, counties, and cities across the country indicating how well that particular region is at maintaining the six-foot rule.
The tracking takes into account three factors: distance traveled, places visited, and everyday encounters.
Walle says that while states may have one grade, true social distancing efforts are best observed at the county and city level.
“Score changes because our mobility patterns also changes. If you go by a couple of months back to March, when the pandemic first hit us with shelter in place and lockdowns, we saw mobility patterns and visitations to non-essential stores drop pretty significantly," Walle said.
Social distancing in the Commonwealth, and Hampton Roads
As a whole, the state of Virginia has a "B" rating for its social distancing metrics. However, specific areas can have their own grades for better or worse, like Virginia Beach, which posted a failing "F" grade as recently as Nov. 25, the day before Thanksgiving.
For months, Virginia Beach showed only grades of "D" or "F." These trends were mirrored by nearby cities like Norfolk, Chesapeake, Newport News, and Hampton.
But as Walle explains, numbers can change regularly. Virginia Beach received a "C" grade on Thanksgiving Day itself, still below the state's grade but an indication that people were not traveling as much during the holiday and were primarily inside with their families. Surrounding Hampton Roads communities posted improved grades of C-minus and C-plus, as well.
Now months into the pandemic, the question becomes how permanent the impact of social distancing will be?
“It's on a very local level, what we find interesting is the next thing: the recovery, that’s what’s really impacting people, loss of jobs," Walle said.
The data can be looked at its entirety on the Unacast website.