The Effects of Restrictions in Economic Activity on the Spread of COVID-19 in the Philippines: Insights from Apple and Google Mobility Indicators

This study aims to investigate the effects of restrictions in economic activity on the spread of COVID-19 in the Philippines. This research employs daily time-series data of confirmed new COVID-19 cases, Apple mobility trends (i.e., use of public transport to destinations, volume of people driving, and amount of walking to destinations) and Google community mobility (i.e., visits to transit stations, visits to workplaces, and staying-at-home) indicators covering the period February 17 to September 11, 2020. The analysis starts by establishing the correlation pattern of new confirmed COVID-19 daily infections to each independent variable. The results show negative linear correlation of the number of new COVID-19 daily infections with less visit to transit station, increase stay-at-home, less use of public transport, and less amount of walking to destinations. Interestingly, the number of new COVID-19 daily infections indicates some form of positive linear correlation with visits to workplaces and volume of people driving. Moreover, employing robust least square regression via the method of MM-estimation, major findings reveal that across mobility measures, staying-at-home has the highest impact on reducing the spread of COVID-19, followed by visiting transit stations less, less use of public transport, less amount of walking, and less workplace visits.