First Assessment of Mobility Changes in Italy

The mitigation measures enacted as part of the response to the unfolding SARS-CoV-2 pandemic are unprecedented in their breadth and societal burden. A major challenge in this situation is to quantitatively assess the impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions like mobility restrictions and social distancing, to better understand the ensuing reduction of mobility flows, individual mobility changes, and impact on contact patterns. Here we report preliminary results on tackling the above challenges by using de-identified, large-scale data from a location intelligence company, Cuebiq, that has instrumented smartphone apps with high-accuracy location-data collection software. We focus this initial analysis on Italy, where the COVID-19 epidemic has already triggered an unprecedented and escalating series of restrictions on travel and individual mobility of citizens.