The Immediate Effect of COVID-19 Policies on Social-Distancing Behavior in the United States

Abstract

Objective Although anecdotal evidence indicates the effectiveness of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) social-distancing policies, their effectiveness in relation to what is driven by public awareness and voluntary actions needs to be determined. We evaluated the effectiveness of the 6 most common social-distancing policies in the United States (statewide stay-at-home orders, limited stay-at-home orders, nonessential business closures, bans on large gatherings, school closure mandates, and limits on restaurants and bars) during the early stage of the pandemic. Methods We applied difference-in-differences and event-study methodologies to evaluate the effect of the 6 social-distancing policies on Google-released aggregated, anonymized daily location data on movement trends over time by state for all 50 states and the District of Columbia in 6 location categories: retail and recreation, grocery stores and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residences. We compared the outcome of interest in states that adopted COVID-19–related policies with states that did not adopt such policies, before and after these policies took effect during February 15–April 25, 2020. Results Statewide stay-at-home orders had the strongest effect on reducing out-of-home mobility and increased the time people spent at home by an estimated 2.5 percentage points (15.2%) from before to after policies took effect. Limits on restaurants and bars ranked second and resulted in an increase in presence at home by an estimated 1.4 percentage points (8.5%). The other 4 policies did not significantly reduce mobility. Conclusion Statewide stay-at-home orders and limits on bars and restaurants were most closely linked to reduced mobility in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, whereas the potential benefits of other such policies may have already been reaped from voluntary social distancing. Further research is needed to understand how the effect of social-distancing policies changes as voluntary social distancing wanes during later stages of a pandemic.

Simulation-based what-if analysis for controlling the spread of Covid-19 in universities

“…Model calibration plays a crucial role in improving projections and estimating cases of documented and undocumented infection [7,36], and this model can benefit from the same practice. The exact magnitude of effects of mask enforcement, social distancing policies, and student compliance can be later estimated by statistical methods [37] and parameter values can be further updated. As a post-analysis reflection, we showed the model can replicate data from our home institution and estimate the total number of cases.…”

Analyzing Public Interest in Metabolic Health-Related Search Terms During COVID-19 Using Google Trends

“…In the United States alone, nearly 30 million people have been infected with more than 540 thousand deaths attributed to COVID-19 [2]. Several public policies were implemented to slow the spread of the virus, including masking mandates, stay-at-home orders, work-from-home policies, and social distancing [3][4][5]. While evidence shows that these measures have imparted varying degrees of efficacy at slowing the spread of the virus, several key confounding factors and comorbidities in clinical outcomes emerged [6].…”

Effect of Fall 2020 K-12 instruction types on COVID-19 cases, hospital admissions, and deaths in Illinois counties

“…Because almost all states closed their public schools and moved to entirely online instruction at about the same time in March 2020, it has been difficult to determine how effective those closings were in limiting the initial spread of the pandemic. Some researchers have attempted to estimate the effect of those early closings on the spread of the pandemic by comparing changes in the spread within states or counties before and after the closings occurred (Abouk & Heydari, 2020;Auger et al, 2020;Hsiang et al, 2020;Yehya, Venkataramani, & Harhay, in press). However, because so many other social distancing restrictions were being imposed at the same time, it is difficult to disentangle the effect of those early closings from the effects of those other measures.…”