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How good is Utah at social distancing?
Mar 26, 2020, 8:50 AM
Norweigan data company Unacast has ranked every county and state in the US on how good they're doing keeping their social distance. And Utah came in pretty average.
We’ve all heard the recommendations from the world’s top doctors urging the global public to practice social distancing as a way to help slow the spread of COVID-19 and help flatten the curve. So how good is Utah at social distancing?
Well, pretty average.
The data company Unacast created a social distancing scoreboard that analyzes real-time data to see how well communities have been at keeping their social distance.
How they did it
The company used anonymized data from millions of smartphones and their daily travels before the COVID-19 pandemic and compared them to travels now.
“Using the change in distance traveled from pre-COVID-19 days as a proxy, we determined a ‘Social Distancing’ score for each county,” the company said.
If the residents of a county dropped their distance traveled by more than 40%, they scored A, and if it was less than 10% they scored an F.
Coming in at the top spot was the nation’s capital with an A ranking where residents dropped their travel by 61%.
They were followed by Nevada (a 55% drop), New Jersey (decreased by 55%), Vermont (a 51% drop), and Massachusetts (also a 51% drop).
Rounding out the bottom was Wyoming, the only state to score F, where the average distance traveled actually went up by 6%.
The other states in ascending order are Montana (a 15% decrease), Hawaii (down by 15%), Idaho (down by 16%) and New Mexico (a drop of 23%).
Utah and social distancing
Utah’s ranking came in at a C. Unacast calculated that the average Utahn reduced their normal travel by 24%. You can see Unacast’s county breakdown below.
Utah’s data on social distancing, based on smartphone data Unacast ranks Utah with a C grade where the average resident reduced their travel by 24%. | Courtesy Unacast
Beaver: F / 31%
Box Elder: F / 28%
Cache: B / -34%
Carbon: F / 27%
Daggett: C / -26%
Davis: C / -25%
Duchesne: D / -14%
Emery: F / 42%
Garfield: F / 13%
Grand: F / 15%
Iron: F / 21%
Juab: F / 0%
Kane: C / -28%
Millard: F / -6%
Morgan: F / 11%
Piute: F / 44%
Rich: F / -5%
Salt Lake: B / -37%
San Juan: F / -4%
Sanpete: D / -20%
Sevier: F / 1%
Summit: A / -56%
Tooele: F / 7%
Uintah: C / -20%
Utah: D / -18%
Wasatch: A / -50%
Washington: D / -18%
Wayne: C / -24%
Weber: D / -18%
