i& #39;ve been speaking w/ @NickHudsonCT & @peter_castleden and their @PanData19 project for south africa.

SA is getting hit savagely hard by lockdown rules that make little to no sense and are already having dire economic effects.

i ran some google mobility data for them.

it& #39;s bad

this is the fastest, sharpest drop i have seen in any country in the world. on 3/26 they were at baseline. on 3/27 they were at -69%.

it& #39;s like they turned off a switch.

this is also a VERY deep drop, perhaps the deepest i& #39;ve seen.

this is shown with the US for comparison.

some of the individual subsets are even more worrying.

look at time at work and on public transit. this is a good proxy for economic damage.

the sawtooth is from weekends. you really want to trace the bottom of the curve.

they dropped 80%. (the US, dropped 40-50%)

time at home also spiked to levels i have not seen in any other country. we have a similar weekend sawtooth here, you want to follow the top of the curve.

high lockdown countries saw a rise in time at home in the low/mid 20& #39;s. this was high 30& #39;s

south africa is not a rich country. they have crushed work and locked millions of people in their homes/townships.

on this part of the preston curve, this is a recipe for wholesale death. SA per capita GDP is ~$6k. median income is closer to $4700.

that& #39;s the steep part.

this is an entirely predictable and entirely avoidable humanitarian disaster in the making.

it& #39;s going to be magnitudes worse that the disease.

please support these folks in their mission to get this rolled back before it does any more harm. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-05-05-actuaries-warn-ramaphosa-of-a-humanitarian-disaster-to-dwarf-covid-19-if-restrictive-lockdown-is-not-lifted/">https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2...