Tracking the movements: Retail, recreation visits below pre-Covid levels

Retail and recreation visits were 0.9 per cent below levels seen in the early part of 2020, mobility data from search engine Google shows. It uses anonymised location data to track how people are moving during the pandemic. The data is released with a lag — the latest is as of February 6. Other categories, including transit stations like train stations, and workplaces, have seen visits rise higher than in pre-Covid times. 

Vehicle registrations for the seven days ending February 9, ahead of Thursday's central bank announcement, were lower than in previous years. It was 13.7 per cent below 2019 levels, though the gap is narrower than when cases were rising because of the Omicron variant.  

The number of passengers taking flights has risen as cases declined to under 100,000 a day. It is still lower than was seen at the beginning of the year.