Decrease in number of Cork people staying within 10km of their homes

A Central Statistics Office’s (CSO) publication has revealed that there was a decrease in the number of people in Cork staying within 10km of their homes at the end of March.

The tenth publication of an insight series on mobility, Covid-19 Insight: Mobility During the Pandemic, revealed that 62.9% of people in Cork remained within 10km of their homes in the week ending March 24.

The following week, the week ending March 31, a total of 62.1% of people in Cork remained within 10km of their home, a decrease of 0.8%.

Cork had the sixth-highest percentage of the population staying local in the week ending March 31 with Dublin the highest at 77.9%, Louth the second-highest at 64%, Wicklow the third-highest at 63.4%, Waterford the fourth-highest at 62.6%, and Limerick the fifth-highest at 62.3%.

The Staying Local Indicator (SLI) used to collect the data provides daily estimated percentages of county populations that have stayed within 10km of home, averaged over the preceding seven days and is based on a statistical analysis of anonymised mobile phone activity records.

The SLI showed that nationally, an estimated 63.6% of the population stayed local during the seven-day period ending March 31.

21 counties showed SLI decreases, indicating that, relative to the previous seven-day period, more people moved beyond 10km of home during the week ending March 31.

From Monday, people can now travel within their own county.

Speaking on Sunday, Acting Chief Medical Officer Dr Ronan Glynn, said that “there are many reasons for hope as we head into a new week”.

He urged people to “please continue to work from home where possible” and to not take children returning to school tomorrow as a signal to return to the workplace.

Dr Glynn also reminded people to avoid mixing indoors with people from other households and to be mindful of distance if meeting with one other household outdoors.

Those with any symptoms of Covid-19 are being told to isolate and contact their GP to arrange a free test.