More people staying close to home due to Covid-19, CSO data shows

Some 65.7% of people stayed within 10km of their homes in week up to March 12th

Dublin continues to be the county with the highest percentage of the population staying local, reflecting its urbanised nature and access to services compared to other counties. Photograph: Patrick Bolger/Bloomberg

The number of people who are opting to stay closer to home because of the Covid-19 restrictions is increasing, new figures suggest.

Weekly figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show 65.7 per cent of people stayed local (within 10km of home) during the week ending March 12th.

This was a slight increase on the 63.8 per cent of people staying within 10km of their home in the previous week, which was the same percentage as the week before that.

The latest figures indicate that most of the public are continuing to obey the restrictions on travel despite a weariness with Covid-19 measures.

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All counties showed a trend towards people remaining local, ranging from a 0.5 per cent increase in people staying within 10km of home to 2.5 per cent in Donegal, Louth and Sligo.

Dublin continues to be the county with the highest percentage of the population staying local (80 per cent during the week ending March 12th), reflecting its urbanised nature and access to services compared to other counties.

The counties with the lowest rates of people staying local were Carlow (50.5 per cent) and Mayo (51.1 per cent).

This is the seventh of an insight series on mobility produced by the CSO. The Staying Local Indicator provides daily estimated percentages of county populations that have stayed within 10km of home, which are averaged.

The indicator is measured by data from phones on the Three network.

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy

Ronan McGreevy is a news reporter with The Irish Times