Notify software is used by thousands of people in over 70 countries across the globe to report near misses and help drive their safety culture. Our unique perspective means we have been able to map the profile and trajectory of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Much is being made of the different “shapes” of the recovery curve, particularly here in the UK, where the sheer speed of lockdown is apparent in our usage data.
In a very short period – the 7th to 28th March – Near Miss reporting on our platform in the UK dropped by a massive 65%.
To give context, the March fall off in near misses was in line with what we typically experience over the Christmas week in the UK, as many people down tools for the festive break.
In normal times, this holiday period is followed by a fast rebound in reports as most people return back to work (often to levels higher than before Christmas, depending on the kind of weather we ‘enjoy’ in the UK!).
These are not normal times, of course. Following the drop in reports in late March, we continued to see activity falling all the way through to the week of 9th May, as shown on our graphic.
By this stage near misses in the UK were running up to 70% lower than previous periods, and the data suggests this was the bottom of the curve.
As we moved towards June, we can see activity rising, but not at the speed at which it fell in Mach. So the big question is whether we’re going to move towards a ‘V’ or ‘W’ curve, or some other letter of the alphabet!
We’ll keep tracking over the next few weeks, so keep an eye out for updates here on our website.
Stats show near-misses reported via Notify’s free app from 11 Jan to 25 Jul, 2020.
What is happening to near miss reporting in other countries?
To illustrate how different countries are faring, we have also analysed data for users in the USA and India. This shows quite a different story to what we are seeing in the UK – and perhaps reflects what we’re seeing in the news coverage.
The USA had much less of an immediate drop-off in reporting, perhaps based on its more decentralised approach. But, in a stark difference to the UK, we’re not picking up an increase in near misses over the last few weeks. There could be some green shoots in the most recent week so we’re interested to see where they go next.
India has seen a similar trend to the USA, but with less evidence of a recent return to more normal near-miss levels.
Note: the data used for this blog is totally anonymised and based on app sessions recorded through Google Analytics. The Notify free-forever app requires no login or user information and is provided as a free tool to help businesses and individuals anywhere in the world start to build a safety culture, as part of our mission to make a billion workers safer at work.
