State-level social distancing policies in response to the 2019 novel coronavirus in the US

This is a data repository for US state-level distancing policies to the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), the cause of COVID-19. It was developed and maintained by researchers at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.

Starting August 1, 2021, we will not be systematically capturing new policies issued by states and the District of Columbia. Our team will be continuing to complete data improvement projects and ensuring full policy records to August 1, 2021; however, policies issued on or after this date will not be included in this data repository. Dataset updates will continue through 2021 but as they are completed (versus a weekly update cycle).

Note all data provided here are subject to updates or revisions based on continuing review of existing policy documentation. All efforts will be made to clearly document and communicate any updates or revisions as they occur.

Analysis of these data is also ongoing; interested parties should contact us (see information below).

Organization

data : .csv files of current and archived datasets.
codebooks : detailed information on policies tracked and variables in each dataset. To date, policies tracked in terms of their issuance, enactment, expansion, easing, and ending include:

• Emergency declarations
• Gathering restrictions and recommendations
• School closures
• Restaurant restrictions
• Bar restrictions
• Business closures (including non-essential business closures)
• Stay-at-home orders and advisories
• Travel restrictions and travel-based quarantine orders
• Case-based isolation orders
• Public mask mandates

figure : sample figures from current analyses.
source : pdf documentation of policies identified.

Articles

• Christopher Adolph, Kenya Amano, Bree Bang-Jensen, Nancy Fullman, John Wilkerson. 2021. "Pandemic Politics: Timing State-Level Social Distancing Responses to COVID-19." Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law. 46(2): 211-233. https://read.dukeupress.edu/jhppl/article/doi/10.1215/03616878-8802162/166718/Pandemic-Politics-Timing-State-Level-Social

• Christopher Adolph, Kenya Amano, Bree Bang-Jensen, Nancy Fullman, Beatrice Magistro, Grace Reinke, Rachel Castellano, Megan Erickson, John Wilkerson. 2021. "The Pandemic Policy U-Turn: Partisanship, Public Health, and Race in Decisions to Ease COVID-19 Social Distancing Policies in the United States." Perspectives on Politics. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1537592721002036

• Christopher Adolph, Kenya Amano, Bree Bang-Jensen, Nancy Fullman, Beatrice Magistro, Grace Reinke, John Wilkerson. 2021. "Governor Partisanship Explains the Adoption of Statewide Mask Mandates in Response to COVID-19." State Politics & Policy Quarterly. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/state-politics-and-policy-quarterly/article/governor-partisanship-explains-the-adoption-of-statewide-mask-mandates-in-response-to-covid19

Presentations

• Christopher Adolph. May 2020. "Pandemic Politics: State-Level Social Distancing Responses to COVID-19" as part of University of Washington's faculty panel on State Politics and Coronavirus Pandemic (4:04-35:17 on the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZIdaGGpryI

• Christopher Adolph & Bree Bang-Jansen. July 2020. "Pandemic Politics: Understanding State-Level Social Distancing Responses to COVID-19" as part of Lehigh University Population Health Colloquium Series: Health Politics and Policy in Response to the Covid-19 Pandemic (3:56-20:39 on the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7owBubWuko&feature=youtu.be

• Christopher Adolph & Beatrice Magistro. October 2020. "Pandemic Politics: Understanding State-level Policy Responses to COVID-19" as part of the University of Washington's Population Research Discovery Seminars with a focus on Policy Analytics and Population Health. https://washington.zoom.us/rec/play/-vwtP0SF0yISKxJAkZ3z64yVa65tjPfx82m4qXAny3jn7OiQqmcPPo5HetYCoEfww0CyRwYVEo8cKQPf.MRZL4bae-UU0AB2n?continueMode=true&_x_zm_rtaid=s5xJrbjXRO65fNZA7waNug.1604005983404.339a753174171065c0990cfe424ba44a&_x_zm_rhtaid=788

• COVID Exit Strategy press call. October 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BqfzKldqXY&feature=youtu.be

Select data applications, analyses, and media coverage to date

• The Economist, Daily Chart, "American states’ responses to the coronavirus follow party lines": https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/02/american-states-responses-to-the-coronavirus-follow-party-lines

• Mother Jones, "Watch How Politics Slowed Red States’ Response to the Coronavirus": https://www.motherjones.com/coronavirus-updates/2020/04/coronavirus-state-social-distancing-policy/

• Newsweek, "States with Republican Governors Delayed Action on Social Distancing Measures, Study Finds": https://www.newsweek.com/states-republican-governors-more-trump-voters-social-distancing-measures-delayed-1495181

• Washingon Post, "Governor’s political party is biggest factor in whether a state has imposed mask mandate, study finds": https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronavirus-masks-politics-study/2020/09/03/00c5d32a-edf3-11ea-b4bc-3a2098fc73d4_story.html

• Kaiser Health News, "Wear a Mask. If Only It Were That Simple.": https://khn.org/news/mask-wearing-enforcement-not-so-simple/

• Kaiser Health News, "Trump's Lame-Duck Status Leaves Governors to Wing It on COVID": https://khn.org/news/lame-duck-president-trump-governors-winging-covid-protection-measures/

• Popular Science, "When states mandate masks, fewer people catch COVID-19": https://www.popsci.com/story/health/masks-states-mandates/

• sars2pack R package: https://github.com/seandavi/sars2pack

• COVID-19 Exit Strategy, mask mandates: https://www.covidexitstrategy.org/

• COVID-19 Mobility Data Network, state-level interventions: https://visualization.covid19mobility.org/?date=2020-09-01&dates=2020-06-01_2020-09-01&region=USA

• Imperial College London, 2020. "Report 23: State-level tracking of COVID-19 in the United States." https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/covid-19/report-23-united-states/

• IHME COVID-19 Forecasting Team, 2020. "Modeling COVID-19 scenarios for the United States." Nature Medicine: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-1132-9

• Unwin et al, 2020. "State-level tracking of COVID-19 in the United States." Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19652-6

• Krishnamachari et al, 2020. "Effects of Government Mandated Social Distancing Measures on Cumulative Incidence of COVID-19 in the United States and its Most Populated Cities." https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.22.20110460v1

• White & Hébert-Dufresne, 2020. "State-level variation of initial COVID-19 dynamics in the United States: The role of local government interventions." https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20065318v1

• Gupta et al, 2020. "Tracking Public and Private Responses to the COVID-19 Epidemic: Evidence from State and Local Government Actions." NBER Working Paper No. 27027: https://www.nber.org/papers/w27027

• Lane et al, 2020. "Strengthening Policy Coding Methodologies to Improve COVID-19 Disease Modeling and Policy Responses: A Proposed Coding Framework and Recommendations." https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.12.20173740v1

• Lipsitz & Pop-Eleches, 2020. "The Partisan Divide in Social Distancing." https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3595695

• Arnon et al, 2020. "Epidemiological and economic effects of lockdown." Brookings Papers on Economic Activity: https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/epidemiological-and-economic-effects-of-lockdown/

• Porcher & Renault, 2020. "Social Distancing Beliefs and Human Mobility: Evidence from Twitter." https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.04826

• Gagnon et al, 2020. "Social Distancing Causally Impacts the Spread of SARS-CoV-2: a U.S. Nationwide Event Study." https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.29.20143131v1.full

• Neelon et al, 2021. "Associations between governor political affiliation and COVID-19 cases, deaths, and testing in the United States." https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.10.08.20209619v4.full

• Krishnamachari et al, 2021. "The role of mask mandates, stay at home orders and school closure in curbing the COVID-19 pandemic prior to vaccination." American Journal of Infection Control: https://www.ajicjournal.org/article/S0196-6553(21)00057-2/fulltext

• Yamamoto et al, 2021. "Quantifying compliance with COVID-19 mitigation policies in the US: A mathematical modeling study." Infectious Disease Modelling: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468042721000191

• Patterson, 2021. "The Politics of Pandemics: The Effect of Stay-At-Home Orders on COVID-19 Mitigation." State Politics & Policy Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1017/spq.2021.14

Citation

As the data are updated regularly, please check any relevant updates here:

Nancy Fullman, Bree Bang-Jensen, Grace Reinke, Beatrice Magistro, Rachel Castellano, Megan Erickson, Rebecca Walcott, Carolyn Dapper, Kenya Amano, John Wilkerson, and Christopher Adolph. "State-level social distancing policies in response to COVID-19 in the US". Version 1.145, September 8, 2021. http://www.covid19statepolicy.org

Contributors

Policy data compiled here are primarily sourced by individual state government websites. As needed, they are supplemented by governor social media, news articles, and other compilations of state-level policy actions (e.g., National Governors Association, Kaiser Family Foundation).

Individual contributors worked on this project at different times from March 2020 through September 2021. All contributors to policy data collection and coding are listed alphabetically below.

Terms of use:

This GitHub repository and its contents herein, including all data, mapping, and analysis, copyright 2020 by the COVID-19 State Policy Team, all rights reserved, is provided to the public to support policy-making, planning, education, and academic research. The Website relies upon publicly available data from multiple sources that do not always agree. The COVID-19 State Policy Team hereby disclaims any and all representations and warranties with respect to the Website, including accuracy, fitness for use, and merchantability. Reliance on the Website for medical guidance or use of the Website in commerce or commercial products is strictly prohibited.