I wanted to track how the state of Texas has been doing on returning to “normal” following the COVID-19 pandemic. Google’s mobility reports track the % change (relative to February 2020) to how often their users are going to residential areas, parks, grocery stores, and others. I was particularly interested in the “workplaces” category which should be a good indicator of how many workers are returning to office.

The return to the office hasn’t been even. The cities and the Permian Basin are lagging behind the more rural areas of the state.

Files needed:

Google mobility reports (mobility_report_US.csv):

This repo has been keeping track and has all historic data for US Counties.

Texas County polygon layer (Texas_County_Boundaries.geojson):

I got mine from TxDOT’s open data portal.

Animated choropleth map of Texas counties showing the changes to travel to workplaces caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.