Worcester County residents are largely taking public officials’ pleas to stay home and limit the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Massachusetts residents have stayed home more than their counterparts in any other state, according to Opportunity Insights, an economic activity tracker run by a consortium including Harvard University and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The tracker, which uses anonymized data from technology partners, found Massachusetts residents have spent 16.8% less time out of their homes compared to January.
In Worcester County, time spent away from home is down 15.2%, and residents appeared to heed the call to stay home even during Thanksgiving. Traffic on Nov. 27 was down 13.6%, little different than the day-to-day variations reported for the region in the past few months.
Worcester County residents were mostly home-bound in April, when traffic outside the home was down about 25% across the month, when coronavirus cases first peaked. Traffic didn’t get the closest to its pre-pandemic levels until the weekend after Labor Day, when such trips were down 6.7%.
Gov. Charlie Baker and Worcester City Manager Edward Augustus are among those who’ve been urging residents to stay home during the holidays and limit gatherings to immediate household members.
Despite largely staying at home, the pandemic has spread to its highest levels yet — from the city of Worcester and Worcester County to statewide and nationally.
States whose residents have left home more often, according to Opportunity Insights, include Mississippi, whose latest data was down only 6% from January, and Alabama, Arkansas, South  Carolina and South Dakota, whose rates are each less than 7%.
