As someone who drove many miles during the early period of lockdowns in 2020, but only to get out of the house, never once in contact with anyone, I crumbled inside every time I heard the news report metrics from mobile devices of miles driven away from home. It is just not a good proxy for number of minutes spent sharing air and surfaces with others without further graph analysis.
I have not read the linked paper, and assume those reporters did not either.
I have not read the linked paper, and assume those reporters did not either.