Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117581.
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117581
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Aug 24;118(34). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2026596118.
Understanding how populations' daily behaviors change during the COVID-19 pandemic is critical to evaluating and adapting public health interventions. Here, we use residential electricity-consumption data to unravel behavioral changes within peoples' homes in this period. Based on smart energy-meter data from 10,246 households in Singapore, we find strong positive correlations between the progression of the pandemic in the city-state and the residential electricity consumption. In particular, we find that the daily new COVID-19 cases constitute the most dominant influencing factor on the electricity demand in the early stages of the pandemic, before a lockdown. However, this influence wanes once the lockdown is implemented, signifying that residents have settled into their new lifestyles under lockdown. These observations point to a proactive response from Singaporean residents-who increasingly stayed in or performed more activities at home during the evenings, despite there being no government mandates-a finding that surprisingly extends across all demographics. Overall, our study enables policymakers to close the loop by utilizing residential electricity usage as a measure of community response during unprecedented and disruptive events, such as a pandemic.
了解人群在 COVID-19 大流行期间的日常行为变化对于评估和调整公共卫生干预措施至关重要。在这里，我们使用住宅用电数据来揭示这一时期人们家中的行为变化。基于新加坡 10246 户家庭的智能电表数据，我们发现城市州大流行的进展与住宅用电量之间存在很强的正相关关系。特别是，我们发现，在封锁之前，大流行早期每日新增的 COVID-19 病例是对电力需求最主要的影响因素。然而，一旦实施封锁，这种影响就会减弱，这表明居民已经在封锁下适应了他们的新生活方式。这些观察结果表明，新加坡居民采取了积极主动的应对措施——尽管政府没有强制要求，但他们在晚上更多地待在家里或在家里进行更多活动——这一发现令人惊讶地适用于所有人口统计学特征。总的来说，我们的研究使政策制定者能够通过利用住宅用电量作为衡量社区在前所未有的破坏性事件（如大流行）期间反应的一种措施来弥补这一差距。
