Following the Science? Examining the Issuance of Stay-At-Home Orders Related to COVID-19 by U.S. Governors

• Author: Gregg R. Murray,Susan M. Murray
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X221106933
• Published date: 01 March 2023
• Date: 01 March 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

American Politics Research

2023, Vol. 51(2) 147–160

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1532673X221106933

journals.sagepub.com/home/apr

Following the Science? Examining the Issuance

of Stay-At-Home Orders Related to

COVID-19 by U.S. Governors

Gregg R. Murrayand Susan M. Murray

Abstract

Informed by the public health policymaking literature, this study’s objective is to identify scientif‌ic, political, social, economic,

and external factors related to U.S. governors’decisions to issue stay-at-home orders (SAHOs) in response to the f‌irst wave of

the COVID-19 pandemic. Public health experts advocate for social distancing to slow the spread of infectious diseases, but

government mandates to social distance can impose substantial social and economic costs. This study uses event history analysis

to investigate the issuance of COVID-19-related gubernatorial SAHOs during a 41-day period in the 50 U.S. states. The f‌indings

indicate that scientif‌ic, political, and economic factors were associated with the issuance of SAHOs, but that external con-

siderations played the largest role, particularly those related to the timing of other governors’decisions. This study offers

evidence about how some U.S. political leaders balance public health concerns against other considerations and, more broadly,

how state governments address crisis-level issues.

Keywords

COVID-19, public health, policy diffusion, executive orders, governors

Introduction

Following urgent warnings from public health experts, there

was a surge of new policies as governments around the world

took dramatic steps to limit the spread of the f‌irst wave of the

coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) (Weible et al., 2020).

In an effort to force social distancing, a primary tool used to

stop the spread of infectious diseases, government authorities

in the U.S. incrementally restricted social contact starting

with prohibiting large gatherings of people, closing schools,

and limiting or closing non-essential businesses ultimately

culminating in comprehensive, statewide stay-at-home orders

(SAHOs) in a large majority of U.S. states. Though specif‌ic

restrictions vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, SAHOs,

which are also referred to as “shelter-in-place”orders, require

people to remain in their residences except to shop for grocery

and pharmacy items, seek medical care, or work in essential

businesses. While SAHOs protect public health and safety,

they impose substantial social and economic costs on society

(e.g., Curley & Federman, 2020;Gostin & Wiley, 2020;Pew

Research Center, 2020). For instance, in the case of COVID-

19 in the U.S., basic constitutional rights such as freedom of

assembly and free exercise of religion were curtailed

(Henson, 2021). Further, over 55 million children were

prevented from attending school (Camera, 2020), more than

20 million people f‌iled initial jobless claims over a 4-week

period (J.P. Morgan, 2020), and almost 300 million

Americans, about 90% of the country, were required to

remain in their residences for several weeks (Norwood,

2020).

Given the profound effects and high-stakes nature of these

SAHOs, the objective of this study is to identify factors

related to U.S. governors’decisions to issue a coronavirus-

related stay-at-home order or not in their states in response to

the f‌irst wave of the disease in early 2020. In particular, this

study evaluates potential public health-related scientif‌ic

factors, the primary drivers one would expect to inf‌luence

public health policy, and other potential factors related to

political, social, and economic conditions as suggested in the

public health policymaking literature (e.g., Brownson et al.,

2009;Spasoff, 1999), as well as factors external to a state that

may have affected these decisions (Berry and Berry, 1992;

Mooney & Lee., 1995). The next section of this manuscript

presents background information on the incremental policy

responses followed by pertinent literature regarding the po-

tential explanatory factors and resulting expectations. The

following section describes the event history analysis method

Augusta University, Augusta, GA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Gregg R. Murray, Augusta University, 1120 15th St, Allgood Hall N225,

Augusta, GA 30912, USA.

Email: gmurray@augusta.edu