People mobility continued to increase in the week ending October 31, reaching its highest level of the pandemic in 10 countries, including the world’s second largest by population, India, according to figures from Google released Thursday.
Mobility was at its highest level since March 2020 in countries as varied as Argentina, Mexico, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, South Africa, India, Japan and South Korea, the data showed.
Together, these countries account for 1.7 billion people, or 22% of the world’s population.
In India, mobility was 10% above January 2020 levels, its highest level since early 2020.
According to Quantum Commodity Intelligence, a notable exception in the data was Russia, where mobility fell to its lowest level since early April due to a very strong resurgence of Covid-19.
Also, while China is not included in the Google data, intercity travel has fallen by around 10% in the past week due to a rise in Covid cases in several northern provinces, according to data from search engine Baidu.
Rising vaccinations have enabled a return to normalcy in many parts of the world, with mobility and fuel demand rising sharply in the last few weeks.
However, the Covid-19 pandemic remains powerful: a total of 3.02 million new cases were registered in the week ending October 31, according to Johns Hopkins University.
While this is down by almost half from the all-time peak of 5.8 million reached at the end of April, this remains significant.
Vaccines have increasingly cut the relationship between cases and deaths, enabling governments to relax social distancing measures.
In Taiwan, overall mobility was 6% below January 2020 levels, the highest figure registered since late April, while in Australia it was at its highest level since mid-May following the relaxation of social distancing measures.
