Questions and answers about
the economy.

U.S. state Covid-19 stay at home orders: were they driven by scientific, economic, or ideological factors?

What factors affected whether or not a U.S. state governor issued a statewide stay-at-home order in response to the Covid-19 pandemic of early 2020? Once issued, what factors affected the length of this stay-at-home order? Using duration analysis, we test a number of scientific, economic, and political factors for their impact on a state governor’s decision to ultimately issue, and then terminate, blanket stay-at-home orders across the 50 U.S. states. Results indicate that while scientific and economic variables had some impact on the length of the stay-at-home orders, political factors dominated both the initiation of, and ultimate duration of, stay-at-home orders across the United States.

Lead investigator:

Lea-Rachel Kosnik

Affiliation:

University of Missouri, St. Louis

Primary topic:

Attitudes, media & governance

Secondary topic:

Recession & recovery

Region of data collection:

North America

Country of data collection

USA

Status of data collection

Complete

Type of data being collected:

Publicly available

Unit of real-time data collection

Region/State

Start date

3/2020

End date

6/2020

Frequency

Periodic (other)

Read the results from this research