Coronavirus: Melbourne residents social distancing more than Sydneysiders

Melbourne residents appear to be following social distancing rules a lot more closely than those in Sydney, with new data revealing people’s movements.

New data has revealed that Sydney residents might not be taking social distancing measures as seriously as people in Melbourne, despite NSW having the largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases.

Data released by Apple Maps shows tough social distancing measures were introduced in Australia in March have had a significant impact on the amount of people using the app to move around the cities.

Though movement around both Sydney and Melbourne has dropped, people seem to be staying home more often in one city than the other.

In Sydney, transit requests for public transport are down 76 per cent from a baseline level recorded in January to April 14.

Requests for driving routes are down 38 per cent and walking routes are down 56 per cent.

The data shows that in Melbourne users have reduced their movement even more, with transit down a massive 83 per cent.

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There was a major drop in driving, walking and catching public transport when after the new social distancing rules were introduced. Picture: Apple

Melbourne appears to have reduced its movement more than Sydney. Picture: Apple

Requests for driving routes across the city are down 51 per cent and walking routes are down 60 per cent.

Nationally, driving has decreased by 44 per cent, walking by 53 per cent, and transit by 78 per cent since the virus reached our shores in March.

The data was gathered by counting the number of routing requests from Apple Maps – the iPhone’s default navigation app – and comparing it with past usage to detect the changes.

Apple said the data is aggregated so that individual users are not tracked on their locations.

Google Maps has also been tracking millions of Australians and releasing the data to show how lockdown measures have changed our movements.

A report released by Google on Saturday shows people in NSW are travelling for retail or recreation purposes 43 per cent less than before the restrictions came into place.

Visits to parks are down 48 per cent, movement at public transport stations are down 60 per cent and travelling to workplaces have dropped by 43 per cent.

Residential movement — or people staying at home — is the only area that saw an increase, with that section up 18 per cent.

Movement is down even more across Victoria, with retail and recreation down 46 per cent, movement at parks down 73 per cent, public transport movement down 42 per cent and trips to workplaces down.

Residential movement is up 22 per cent across the state.

Manly Beach seen looking very busy on Easter Saturday. Picture: Matrix Media

Experts have previously said that if just 10 per cent of Aussies don’t follow the restrictions then it may not have an effect on eradicating the virus.

Victorian Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said today that there was no plans to roll back stage three restrictions across the state.

However, she is “optimistic” they won’t have to implement a stage four lockdown, with cases continuing to decrease.

Scott Morrison also dismissed claims social restrictions would be easing up soon, but said there should be a “reward” for the nation’s “discipline and patience”.

“Yes, we’ve had a good couple of weeks but that does not a virus beat. That’s why we have many more in front of us before we could even possibly contemplate the easing of restrictions,” he told Sky News on Tuesday.

“There has got to be a reward for all of this great effort going in, and there will be, but we’ve got to make sure it is done at the right time,” he said.

“We don’t want to end up like New York or like London or like in Spain or in Italy or any of these places,” he said.

“And the decisions and actions we’ve taken together as a country and the discipline and patience shown by Australians has meant that we’ve been able to avoid those horror scenarios which, you know, Australia is not immune to.”