The effect of mobility restrictions on the SARS-CoV-2 diffusion: lessons from the first wave in Sweden, USA, France and Colombia.

The control of human mobility has quickly been targeted as a major leverage to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in a great majority of countries worldwide. Using more than 151 million anonymized movements registered by one of the major social media platforms combined with spatial and temporal Covid-19 data, the objective of this research is to understand how mobility patterns and SARS-CoV-2 diffusion during the first wave are connected in four different countries: the west coast of the USA, Colombia, Sweden and France. In this research, we could demonstrate that introducing movement improved considerably the model. It underlines as well that mobility played an important role in the diffusion of SARS-CoV-2, even during the lockdown, suggesting a moderate impact of lockdown on virus diffusion. However, it suggests that government could better locate where disease mitigation would be the most effective by systematically analyzing real-time movements of population. Lockdown strategies and vaccination campaigns could, for example, be prioritized according to spatial vulnerability and connectivity to hotspots of viral circulation.