The Space Needle flies a #WeGotThisSeattle flag. (@Space_Needle Photo via Twitter)

Seattle-area residents are taking Washington state’s social distancing mandate seriously. They have dramatically reduced trips to work, retail and restaurants, and transit stations, according to Google data. But Seattleites love their parks and that doesn’t appear to be changing.

Google’s new COVID-19 Mobility Reports provide county-level data on how people are moving around. Google customers who have opted in to sharing their location history with the tech giant provide the underlying data. The mobility report compares trends for the past few days with a baseline, measured by the median value for the corresponding day of the week from Jan. 3 – Feb. 6.

Compared to that time, people in King County reduced their trips to retail and recreation businesses by 57%. Visits to transit stations are down 66% and trips to workplaces are down 47%. Meanwhile, Google observed a 15% increase in people parked at residences.

The report shows a 0% change in visits to parks in the Seattle area despite efforts by local officials to reduce crowding in these areas. Parking lots at Seattle’s eight most popular parks have been closed since March 24.

Google says it created the mobility reports to help inform public health and elected officials as they work to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’ve heard from public health officials that the same type of aggregated, anonymized insights we use in products such as Google Maps could be helpful as they make critical decisions to combat COVID-19,” the Mobility Reports website says.

But privacy advocates are concerned about location tracking and other tech tools that have been rolled out in response to the coronavirus crisis.

“Once the genie is out of the bottle, it is hard to put back,” wrote the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Adam Schwartz in a blog post last week. “That’s why we ask these questions about government demands for new high-tech surveillance powers, especially in the midst of a crisis.”

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee implemented a broad social distancing order in late March that closed schools, entertainment, restaurants, retail, and all other non-essential activity. The rules will be in place until May 4 or later, Insee said last week. The measures appear to be slowing the spread of COVID-19 or “flattening the curve.” Seattle and Washington state have not seen the exponential increase in cases that other regions in the U.S. and abroad face.

“We’re not out of the woods yet, and we shall never flag or fail in our commitments to win this battle,” Inslee said during a press conference last week. “We will not accept unnecessary deaths in our state.”

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