These states are apparently the best at social distancing

Denver Colorado.
(Image credit: Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

If executive orders don't work, how about a little friendly competition between states to see who's the best at social distancing?

Unacast, a technology company, analyzed GPS location data from millions of smartphones across the country to track average distances before and after the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States and subsequently doled out grades to each state and county based on how big the decline has been, The Star Tribune reports.

The good news is that while some states are doing better than others, the majority appear to be doing their part. Several states received an A grade after showing greater than 40 percent declines in average distance traveled by and very few achieved lower than a B. The states that have stood out, in addition to Washington, D.C., which leads the pack with a 60 percent decrease, are Alaska, Nevada, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. New York, the state dealing with the worst of the crisis right now, also received an A.

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Not every state earned strong marks, though. Wyoming was hit with a failing grade, while Montana and Idaho received Ds. Of course, those states are more sparsely populated so traveling greater distances is required more often. Read more at The Star Tribune and see more of Unacast's data here.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.