Mobility index to assess safety in Urban regions during a pandemic

Abstract

During these uncertain times of the pandemic, when there is a lot of chaos on a global scale, one of the major contributing factors of the chaos, is the lack of a true indicator of the severity or criticality of the spread of the virus, in a given geographical location. The only indicator we currently have is the total number of cases, complemented with the number of active cases and deaths in a given geography. While that does give an abstract picture, it isn’t sufficient to gauge the safety of an individual on a more micro level like visiting a hospital or a park, especially in the unlock stages of a pandemic which lead to quite a few issues like – insecurity, mental disharmony or even worse, a second wave, which could lead to things locking up again. So, to deal with this appropriately, we introduce a new parameter to measure the severity at a more micro level. We introduce the mobility index which measures the number of footprints in each area at real time and reports the safety of going there. This finds its application at several essential places of visit like hospitals, markets. etc.