Everyday mobility as a vulnerability marker: The uneven reaction to coronavirus lockdown in Russia

Abstract

Spatial inequality can lead to unexpected consequences, especially in large countries like Russia. State officials’ attempts to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic led to a national lockdown, which was supposed to dramatically reduce the daily mobility of people and therefore the likelihood of infection. At the same time, the Russian government did not introduce an emergency regime, and the measures to support the population and business were criticized by experts as insufficient. Using daily data on mobility in 308 municipalities in Russia, we examined the unevenness of the decline in the level of mobility depending on the level of wages. The results show that the poorer the municipality, the smaller was the mobility decline, that is, the poorer areas were more vulnerable to the pandemic risks. The work also illustrates the larger amplitude of mobility in rich versus poor areas during the period of exiting from the lockdown.

Spread of COVID-19 in the Russian regions in 2020: factors of excess mortality

“…It is natural that in richer regions with well-developed industry, transport and wholesale trade, the level of business activity is higher and more people continued to work even during the lockdown, therefore both morbidity and mortality were relatively higher. The obtained conclusion contradicts results of many foreign and one Russian work (Khalatbari-Soltani et al 2020;Caul 2020;Ettensperger 2021;Dokhov and Topnikov 2021) but does comply with results of a cross-country study (Chaudhry et al 2020) and studies based on data of the Russian regions (Zemtsov and Baburin 2020;Pilyasov et al 2021).…”

“…This is due to the fact that the poor population was forced, despite the lockdown, to go to work to cover their basic needs (Khalatbari-Soltani et al 2020). A similar relationship was found in the Russian municipalities -mobility was higher where wages were lower (Dokhov and Topnikov 2021). In the UK, in poor areas the COVID-associated mortality was twice as high as in rich areas (Caul 2020).…”

“…And vice versa, integral indices compiled on the basis of a set of measures taken require adjustments to the level of their implementation. The Yandex index has already been used in studies on prevalence of COVID-19 on the basis of the Russian data (Dokhov and Topnikov 2021;Egorov et al 2021).…”

The Impact of COVID-19 on Small Businesses in the US: A Longitudinal Study from a Regional Perspective

“…Like previous disasters, COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted vulnerable communities: those which have a significant number of racial minority members, older adults, homeless, and low-income households ( Bambra et al 2021 ; Dokhov and Topnikov 2021 ). Both international and national crises often call attention to the inequalities in the labor market that disproportionately affect individuals from marginalized backgrounds ( Cook and Grimshaw 2021 ; Kantamneni 2020 ).…”

COVID-19: Relationship between mobility and macroeconomic indicator

“…A recent study (M Herren et al, 2020) found that countries with more authoritarian governments were more compliant with lockdown orders as measured by a reduction in mobility patterns. Using the Yandex mobility data in 308 municipalities in Russia, it was found that poorer municipalities observed a smaller decline in mobility during lockdown (Dokhov and Topnikov, 2020).…”