COVID-19 transmission in the U.S. before vs. after relaxation of statewide social distancing measures
Summary
Weeks after issuing social distancing orders to suppress severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission and reduce growth in cases of severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), all U.S. states and the District of Columbia partially or fully relaxed these measures. We identified all statewide social distancing measures that were implemented and/or relaxed in the U.S. between March 10-July 15, 2020, triangulating data from state government and third-party sources. Using segmented linear regression, we estimated the extent to which relaxation of social distancing affected epidemic control, as indicated by the time-varying, state-specific effective reproduction number (R ). After relaxation of social distancing, R reversed course and began increasing by 0.007 units per day (95% CI, 0.006-0.007), reaching a mean R of 1.16 eight weeks later, with only 9/51 jurisdictions maintaining R <1.0. Premature relaxation of social distancing measures undermined the country’s ability to control the disease burden associated with COVID-19.
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