The research found locations where people had predictable and periodic movement – such as travelling to and from work – provided more useful indicators of virus spread than social settings. In the case studies, the data was therefore more useful in predicting virus spread in the Cedar Meats outbreak than the Crossroads Hotel outbreak.
When it came to analysing Victoria’s second wave, which started with the confined suburb lockdowns in late June and early July, the analysis found mobility data could have alerted the government the spread had already moved beyond the suburbs initially confined to lockdown.
“Our examination of the second wave of community transmission in Victoria showed that several weeks before it was recognised, the spatial distribution of a small number of active cases was indicative of the outbreak distribution more than 30 days later when interventions were introduced,” the researchers said in the paper.