It's the number one rule being drilled in to all of us right now - social distancing or physically distancing ourselves from others is the only way to stop the spread.
Our news partner ABC11 tracked the data, county-by-county, to see how North Carolina is doing staying at home or at least close to home. How did they do that? By tracing the patterns of the devices most of us carry all the time, our cell phones.
The ABC11 I-Team examined the maximum distance a cell phone moved from its original location each morning. We were using information provided by Descartes Labs. They provided anonymous data from authorized users who agreed to share their locations within apps like maps or social media.
The I-Team tracked three dates: March 9, March 16 and last Monday, March 23.
Statewide, the typical North Carolinian was traveling an average six miles away from home. It was down to 4.8 miles a week later. And by the 23rd it was down to 2.5 miles -- a 59 percent decrease.
In Wake County, 5.7 miles was the average distance residents traveled from home on March 9. By last Monday, even before the county's stay-at-home order took hold, it was down to 0.8 miles --an 86 percent drop.
In Durham County, a typical resident moved 4.4 miles from home on March 9 and sliced the distance down to four tenths of a mile by the 23rd -- a 90 percent decrease.
And there was an even larger travel decrease in Orange County: 5.1 miles traveled on March 9 to 0.3 miles by the March 23 -- down 95 percent.