Pandemic Politics: Timing State-Level Social Distancing Responses to COVID-19

Christopher Adolph; Kenya Amano; Bree Bang-Jensen; Nancy Fullman; John Wilkerson

The copyright holder for this . https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.03. 30.20046326 doi: medRxiv preprint and restaurants. Finally, a minority of states have added closures of non-essential business and stay-at-home orders. By the end of our study period, all states except Arkansas and Mississippi had recommended against or restricted public gatherings, 44 states had closed schools and restricted restaurant operations, nineteen states closed non-essential businesses, and fourteen states issued stay-at-home orders. The final plot on the bottom right highlights the rapid growth in states enacting multiple social distancing measures, as well as the presence of a substantial number of laggard states still lacking most social distancing policies as late as 23 March 2020.