Mandated and Voluntary Social Distancing during the COVID-19 Epidemic

The COVID-19 epidemic upended social and economic life in the United States. To reduce transmission, people altered their mobility and interpersonal contact, and state and local governments acted to induce social distancing through across-the-board policies. The epidemic and the subsequent social distancing response led to high unemployment and to efforts to reopen the economy using more-targeted virus mitigation policies. This paper makes five contributions to studying epidemic policy and mobility. First, we review COVID-19 research on mobility, labor markets, consumer behavior, and health. Second, we sketch a simple model of incentives and constraints facing individuals. Third, we propose a typology of government social distancing policies. Fourth, we review new databases measuring cellular mobility and contact. Fifth, we present regression evidence to help disentangle private versus policy-induced changes in mobility. During the shutdown phase, large declines in mobility occurred before states adopted stay-at-home (SAH) mandates and in states that never adopted them, suggesting that much of the decline was a private response to the risk of infection. Similarly, in the reopening phase mobility increased rapidly, mostly preceding official state reopenings, with policies explaining almost none of the increase.