Thousands of spring breakers traveled from one Florida beach to cities across the US - mapping their phone data shows the importance of social distancing amid the coronavirus outbreak
- Despite CDC guidance recommending social distancing to stop the spread of coronavirus, spring break partiers flocked to Florida beaches earlier this month.
- Newly-released phone location data shows how people congregated at one Florida beach then traveled across much of the US.
- The data shows roughly 5,000 devices traveling from a single beach in Fort Lauderdale in one week to cities spanning the Eastern US, including New York, Chicago, New Orleans, and Houston.
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President Donald Trump urged Americans on March 16 to avoid gatherings of 10 or more people in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. But the following week, photos showed thousands of people crowding Florida beaches at the peak of spring break season.
Newly published phone-location data shows that those gatherings could have an impact far beyond Florida alone.
Data aggregated by location data firm X-Mode Social shows roughly 5,000 devices gathered at one Fort Lauderdale beach in mid-March. In the week that follows, those devices fan out and travel across much of the Eastern US, possibly reflecting spring breakers traveling home after vacation.
In a video published to Twitter, data visualization group Tectonics GEO mapped the phones' movements across the US.
Location data companies like X-Mode Social are able to track the precise location of smartphones across the globe using software built into various apps that people download. The practice has raised the ire of privacy advocates, but location data firms and their partners insist that people's movements are anonymized and not directly tied to their identities.
"We take every effort to ensure privacy in the data we use. All device data is anonymized and we only work with partners who share our commitment to privacy and security above all," Tectonix GEO tweeted in response to one person's privacy concerns.
A representative for X-Mode Social was not immediately available for comment.
Footage of spring breakers partying in Florida despite social distancing guidelines was shared widely earlier this month.
"If I get corona, I get corona," one 22-year-old defiantly said in a TV interview while partying on the beach (he later apologized).
Florida Gov. Ron de Santis initially refused to close beaches, but Florida state parks finally closed all beaches on Monday. The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has since surged past 2,400 in Florida and 85,000 people nationwide.