April 27, 2020 / By Elisha Fieldstadt
As people grow weary of staying inside, more people are venturing out and growing lax on social distancing efforts meant to stop the spread of coronavirus, according to data from the University of Maryland.
The university has developed a tool using anonymous cellphone data to track social distancing compliance, and last week, for the first time, researchers saw a decline in the social distancing effort across the country by 3 percent, said professor Lei Zhang, who is leading the project. 
“What we see right now is that individual Americans — many of them are deciding on their own that they’re going to reopen themselves to go out more,” Zhang said. “It’s just a major shift as the nation fights the pandemic.”