Abstract
The United States federal government developed a COVID-19 blueprint for states to follow; it included the issuance by state/local governments of “stay at home” orders coupled with lists of essential services. Suppliers of these services would be exempt from closure so their workers could fulfill their essential functions. The blueprint was embraced by the states in a variety of ways. In this paper, we identify how business closure rules were enacted across the states for each of 15 types of services. The outcome measures were: “open” “open with restrictions” and “closure”. For six business types, most states permitted businesses to open. In four types, businesses were mainly closed. In three, they were allowed to open with restrictions. In the rest, there was a mixture of outcomes. In sum, the federal blueprint resulted in a regulatory patchwork as it spread throughout the country.
Highlights
When the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic took hold in the U.S, the federal government developed a blueprint for the states to follow[1]
This plan included stay-at-home orders and a list of closure-exempted essential services, which was developed by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CSIA)[2]
A patchwork of rules regarding business closures emerged across the states[4]
Summary
When the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic took hold in the U.S, the federal government developed a blueprint for the states to follow[1]. This plan included stay-at-home orders and a list of closure-exempted essential services, which was developed by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CSIA)[2]. Guided by the CSIA list, 28 states developed lists of non-essential services and used this list to mandate business, government, and nonprofit closures. In total 13 states developed their own “non-essential” lists along with their stay-at-home mandates. In six states (AR, IA, NE, ND, OK, WY), closures or reduced activities of non-essential services were ordered along with stay-at-home recommendations (but not mandates). This study follows the designation of essential and non-essential industries in each state and summarizes them
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