Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data catalogs state and territorial executive orders, administrative orders, resolutions, and proclamations closing and reopening restaurants from March 11, 2020 through May 31, 2021. The dataset is broken down to the county level, derived from publicly available government documents. Data collection involved a primary coder with additional coders conducting quality assurance.
Use Cases
- Analyze the duration and frequency of restaurant closure orders at the county level to assess regional policy responses.
- Map the geographic spread of restaurant reopening requirements based on state and territorial proclamations.
- Study the legal epidemiology of COVID-19 mitigation by tracking the issuance of executive orders and administrative orders over time.
- Correlate the timing of business closure orders with other public health metrics across different counties.
Strengths
- Derived from official government documents and press releases, excluding news media reports.
- Covers a defined 15-month period from March 2020 to May 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Data is coded with quality assurance involving multiple coders.
- Provides granular, county-level breakdowns of state and territorial orders.
Limitations
- Dataset excludes recommendations not formalized in an order and orders not available on public websites.
- Effective and expiration dates are coded using only the date provided, without considering the specific time of day.
- The dataset does not represent an official position of the CDC.
Provenance
- Source
- United States Department of Health and Human Services. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Collection Method
- State and territorial orders were collected from government websites, cataloged, and coded in Microsoft Excel by a primary coder with quality assurance from additional coders.
- Time Range
- March 11, 2020 through May 31, 2021.
- Freshness
- Last updated on the platform in February 2026, but the underlying data collection period ended in May 2021.
- Geography
- United States, including states and territories, broken down to the county level.