Mobility improves as virus fears ease

Mobility, which took an immense and a prolonged toll from the pandemic, appears to be re-emerging as people are seen venturing out for shopping and other recreational activities after more than a year of shelter-in-place.

According to Google’s mobility report from January through March, people were seen increasingly patronising supermarkets, food vendors and drug stores.  The increasing mobility is measured at 14 percent above Google’s baseline level by the end of March, the data showed.

Meanwhile the visits to recreation centres, parks, transit stations and work places are returning to their pre-pandemic levels through March-end, although they still remain below the baseline level. 

Sri Lankans are also getting ready to celebrate their biggest festive season with Sinhala and Tamil New Year this month with much enthusiasm as last year’s celebrations were ruined by COVID-19 lockdown orders and the year before by Easter deadly attacks. 

Domestic travel has also restarted after it came to a halt in October last year, as many people are taking trips to resorts and their favourite destinations within the country as they had to put off such travel due to warnings by healthcare and law enforcement authorities over inter-provincial travel. 

In the final week of March, just when the New Year consumer demand kept running its full swing, the Central Bank said the country is expected to have a burst of economic activity in 2021 as consumption appear to be returning to its pre-pandemic levels.

Consumption accounts for more than two thirds of the Sri Lankan economy, making it a crucial component for the overall health of the economy and its reinvigoration.   

The month of February delivered a surprising private sector credit report with more than Rs.80 billion in fresh credit being disbursed by the licensed commercial banking sector alone.  Health authorities have issued a guideline to celebrate Avurudu, which appears to be receiving scant regard.