GOOGLE DATA: Covid surge hits Asia, Russia mobility w/e July 9

Quantum Commodity Intelligence – Personal mobility in Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, Russia and South Africa was on the wane in the week ending July 9, according to Google data, falling by as much as 23.6 percentage points as the countries battle fresh waves of Covid infections.

The number of journeys made in Indonesia moved the most into negative territory, with the weekly average figure dropping 6.1 pp to 17% below a January 2020 baseline.

Mobility data for South Korea and Russia showed a number of journeys still above the January 2020 average, but with the greatest weekly falls, at 12.6 pp and 23.6 pp, to +26% and +113.3% respectively.

Japan and South Africa saw figures drop 1.6 pp and 3.9 pp to -11.3% and -10.4%, respectively.

All of those countries apart from Japan have seen large increases in the number of daily cases through June, according to Johns Hopkins University data, with daily death toll and case records seen and new restrictions put in place this month.

Other countries saw largely positive data for the first week in July, with most of Europe and the Americas registering increases.

The France mobility figure gained 8 pp to +26.8%, the highest weekly figure since Google began publishing the data in February last year.

Germany, Spain and Italy all also saw increases, while Poland and the UK registered small dips, but remained positive vs January 2020.

The US rose 1.8 pp to +7.5%, Mexico 2.7 pp to -3.4% and Brazil 6.7 pp to +2.1%.