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Wales Online
Wales Online
National
Thomas Deacon

The worrying data showing people in Wales are going out more

Concerning new data appears to show people in Wales visited parks more over the past weekend despite the coronavirus lockdown.

Google has released location data collected from users across the country in recent weeks.

It shows that far fewer people have been going out and about since the lockdown. But in their latest release it appears to show that visits to parks increased last weekend.

It comes as people are being urged to stay at home despite temperatures forecast to hit up to 24C in parts of Wales on Saturday.

Data from two weeks ago suggested visits to places including parks, public beaches, and gardens dropped 52% compared to pre-lockdown across the UK.

But in the latest data released on Thursday it showed the figure was 29%.

Google said the baseline is the median value, for the corresponding day of the week, during the five-week period between January 3 and February 6, 2020.

Although every part of Wales has seen a massive drop since the lockdown spikes can be seen last weekend in parks across a number of areas.

The first lot of data covers February 16 to March 29 and the second covers February 23 to April 5.

Here is how the figures changed for cities and counties across Wales. Graphs marked with an asterisk indicates instances where there is not enough data to provide a complete analysis of this place.

(Google)
(Google)

Swansea

(Google)
(Google)

Newport

(Google)

 

(Google)

Pembrokeshire

(Google)
(Google)

Gwynedd

(Google)

Carmarthen

(Google)

 

(Google)

The full UK data for the first period can be seen here and for the second period here.

The reports use data from people who have enabled location history tracking through their Google account.

The tech giant collects the data from people's smartphones. It's normally used to provide advice about how busy shops are and what traffic is like.

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