Michigan Gets an ‘A’ in Social Distancing Following ‘Stay Home, Stay Safe’ Order

I know, because I've heard them say it to me, that people feel we may be going a bit overboard on the action Governor Whitmer and other governors have taken to combat the coronavirus.  But after seeing this "Social Distancing Scorecard" that Norwiegen based Unacast developed, I've got to say, I'm proud of our state and the actions that all of us have taken to slow the spread of COVID-19.

According to the Social Distancing Scorecard, Michigan scored an A on our social distancing activity. To score an A, it means we've changed our daily average distance traveled by more than 40%.  The data used to determine this is based on GPS location data from mobile devices.

The top 5 states for slowing down activity and staying home (or social distancing) are DC (which technically isn't a state, but ranks #1 in the Unacast scorecard) followed by Alaska, Nevada, New Jersey, and New York.  The worst states are Idaho, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Wyoming.  Overall the United States scored a C on their social distancing scorecard.

As for Michigan, Norwiegen also broke the data down by counties as well. Luce, Keweenaw, Alger, Oakland, and Macomb are the top 5 counties for the state, while Ontonagon, Osceola, Houghton, Schoolcraft, and Montmorency counties were at the bottom of the list for practicing social distancing with an F.

Did you notice in the state scorecard and our Michigan County one, the worst areas at staying home are in the U.P. and the worst states for staying home are the less populated states in the northern part of the U.S.   Maybe they aren't slowing down and staying home because they social distance on a daily level since there are fewer people living in those areas?  (That doesn't mean COVID-19 isn't in those areas though.)

As for West Michigan, Kent County scores an A but the neighboring counties aren't doing so well.  Allegan and Montcalm Counties both scored a C and Mecosta County scored the worst with a D. Meanwhile, Ottawa, Muskegon, Newaygo, Ionia, and Barry Counties scored B's.