According to the latest Google mobility data there is a clear divide between the south east and the rest of the state when it comes to shrugging off the concerns of the pandemic.

Many of the regional cities are almost back to normal. The one key stand-out is the reluctance by almost every town and city to use public transport.

On the Gold Coast, public transport use is down 40 per cent when compared with the first week of February. That’s slightly more than the state figure of 38 per cent.

In Brisbane, the visiting of retail and recreation centres was down 5 per cent, supermarkets and pharmacies were down 5 per cent, parks visits were down 66 per cent, public transport 45 per cent, workplaces down 16 per cent and residences were up 4 per cent.

The Gold Coast had a more pronounced drop in visits to retail and recreation, but the rest of the categories were similar to Brisbane.

Mackay is well and truly back to shopping. Visits to retail and recreation were up 14 per cent and supermarkets 36 per cent. There were more people getting back to the office in the coal capital than in February (up 10 per cent).

Oddly, Noosa has adopted public transport, one of the few regions where its use was up (11 per cent). However, Noosa people still don’t like parks (down 63 per cent), workplaces (down 10 per cent) and supermarkets (down 30 per cent).

Toowoomba people are back in the office (up 1 per cent) and are back shopping (up 11 per cent) but refuse to use public transport (down 54 per cent).

Townsville was similar. Cairns was still down 3 per cent on visiting workplaces but was positive about retail and recreation (up 8 per cent) and supermarkets and pharmacies (up 3 per cent).