Mobility and public attitudes change during the COVID-19 social recovery in Singapore

Keywords: Human dynamics, COVID-19, social media, public transportation, new norm
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in over 6,400,000 deaths by August 2022 and greatly affected people’s daily lives globally. During the breakout in 2020, under the fear of infection and the travel and social gathering restriction policies, mobility was significantly decreased and people’s emotional welling-being was affected because of uncertainty and loneliness. After more than two years since the breakout, numerous countries and regions are moving towards the new norm and recovering from the influence of COVID-19 with the global vaccination and the virus mutation to less virulent variants. Studying the social recovery from a public health crisis could help communities and societies to better prepare and respond to future potential epidemics and also provide a reference to regions trying to better control and eliminate the influence of COVID-19. Singapore, after reaching a vaccination rate of over 80%, announced to move towards the new norm in October 2021. This research aims to explore the change in mobility on public transportation change and public attitudes from social media during the COVID-19 social recovery period in Singapore. Specifically, the temporal change in mobility and public attitude during the COVID-19 recovery phase and the comparison with pre-COVID and the lockdown periods will be presented. Moreover, the long-term influence on residents’ travel patterns will be discussed. The spatial heterogeneity on mobility and public attitude recovery will be analyzed with urban functions.