Monroe County has been one of the best counties in the state at practicing social distancing, according to data from Unacast’s Social Distancing Scoreboard.
Monroe, along with Hamilton and Howard, scored an A-. Indiana as a whole has a current score of C.
Data company Unacast created the Social Distancing Scoreboard as part of a pro bono toolkit to help U.S. officials make informed decisions about the coronavirus pandemic.
“The first toolkit element, live today, is a new Social Distancing Scoreboard, which we are making available to help raise awareness of and reinforce the importance of social distancing,” Unacast CEO Thomas Walle wrote in a web post. “We also believe it will not only help make sense of what’s happening now, but unearth trends that will help project scenarios in the short- and mid-term future.”
The company uses cellphone data to track people’s movements.
In a separate web post, Madeline Ngo, Unacast’s head of product and insights, writes that they use that data to determine an increase or decrease in distance traveled and whether the trip was “essential” or not. Then, Unacast provides each county and state with a grade.
The data and methodology are continually updated, so state and county grades could fluctuate.
The following counties are located in the WFIU/WTIU coverage area and have received these grades so far:
- Bartholomew: C
- Brown: C
- Clay: D-
- Daviess: D
- Decatur: C-
- Greene: D
- Hendricks: B-
- Howard: A-
- Jackson: D
- Johnson: B-
- Lawrence: D-
- Marion: B-
- Martin: D
- Morgan: D
- Orange: D
- Owen: C
- Putnam: D-
- Shelby: B-
- Vigo: B-
- Washington: D-
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