Globally, the Google mobility and economic activity indices haven’t budged much over the past week. That’s a good thing as they’ve sustained the pickup seen in late November, defying the rebound in Covid infection rates we’ve seen in several places. This also takes us through the noise of US Thanksgiving.
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There has been a strong pick up in the DM mobility indices over the past week, the US rebounding over the Thanksgiving period while the easing of restrictions in Europe have boosted mobility and economic activity there – the most notable improvement being in France. Trends elsewhere remain similar, with the exception of Korea which has seen a continued deterioration amid a “third wave” there and tighter restrictions, which continue to be added to.
The Google mobility indicators show a further decline in both mobility and economic activity over the past week. The dip perhaps overstates the scale of the drop with US Thanksgiving holiday (which generated a bump in activity going into the holiday, and dip during and after) combining with tougher localised restrictions there. The story in Europe was better.
The latest google mobility statistics suggest things have stabilised a little. Although the devil is in the detail. On the DM side, Europe looks fairly static from last week but this masks a further sharp drop in Italy, which offset something of a bounce in France and the generally steadier picture we’ve seen in Germany and Spain.
We’ve seen a further downturn in the European mobility, as national lockdowns continue to bite, with the UK, France and Italy all falling significantly over the past seven days. Spain and Germany have been steadier, helped by the fact that they’ve been able to bend the Covid infection curve, with new cases rolling over and doing so from lower infection levels. Looking at things globally the picture looks more balanced, European weakness offset by ongoing improvements across Asia and in the larger emerging markets.
The latest Google mobility data is starting to show the impact of lockdown 2.0. What is interesting is how both Lockdown 2.0 is being implemented compared to the draconian measures enacted back in the spring, and how these restrictions are varying in their impact country to country. The regional divergences we identified last time persist. This is again a function of the resurgence of the virus in northern hemisphere developed markets, and the measures taken to combat this.
The tale of diverging fortunes between Asia and Europe (and to a lesser extent the US) persist in the latest Google mobility numbers, as rising Covid infections in certain countries drag on mobility. The second round of national lockdowns in Europe have started to drag on overall mobility.
The resurgence of Coronavirus in the developed economies, specifically Europe and to a lesser extent (so far) the US is leading to a clear divergence in economic activity According to the latest global mobility and economic activity data (running through to 16 October), DMs continue to show a deceleration in activity.
Global mobility and economic activity data, published by Google, is pointing to some loss in the momentum of recovery. Although the mobility indices continue to register small improvements (despite the resurgence of the virus in many places), economic activity is not following through from that.
To refresh, these indices measure the level of activity as measured against the pre-pandemic level using the Google Mobility Indexes, adjusted by Independent Strategy. Activity is a smoothed average of the economic and mobility measures, which provides a guide to the current recovery trend. The data runs through to the end of September.
These indices measure the level of activity as measured against the pre-pandemic level using the Google Mobility Indexes as adjusted by Independent Strategy. Activity is an average of the economic and mobility measures. The data are weighted and averaged over seven days to define the trend. The data runs through to 11 September. The current deviation from where things stood pre-crisis is shown in Figure 1.
We’ve been honing high-frequency indicators to follow the pace of recovery in major economies from the depths of the Covid pandemic lockdowns. Our indicators, entitled mobility and economic activity indexes, measure the level of activity against the pre-pandemic level using the Google Mobility Indices and the Dallas Fed’s Mobility Engagement measure. We adjust these to obtain a smoothed and comparable index of near-time activity.
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