[2006alum]

The one thing I'd note is that this assumes a pretty strong correlation between actual sheltering in place and the timing of a formal government edict mandating as much. In my experience, most people I knew were effectively sheltering in place even before every state's orders formally went into effect, which means there may not have been much of a difference in whether or not there was a formal SiP order. Once NYC exploded in mid/late-March, my sense is that most people in most places took it seriously and adjusted their behavior accordingly. And in places like California, most major employers were doing WFH long before it was required. Even in NY, Cuomo had ordered daily reductions in workplace employees from 25 to 50 to 75 to full SiP, so I'm not even sure what the precise date should be that we use to measure when SiP went into effect.

Nate Silver had a good anecdote about traveling from Kansas City back to NYC by car and observing that real world social distancing practices did not seem to vary by state as he made his way back from Missouri to New York, even though some states had SiP orders in effect and others did not. My suspicion is that there is less variation between how people are living their lives in Florida vs. California as we might expect based on the media coverage.

[2006alum]

The one thing I'd note is that this assumes a pretty strong correlation between actual sheltering in place and the timing of a formal government edict mandating as much. In my experience, most people I knew were effectively sheltering in place even before every state's orders formally went into effect, which means there may not have been much of a difference in whether or not there was a formal SiP order. Once NYC exploded in mid/late-March, my sense is that most people in most places took it seriously and adjusted their behavior accordingly. And in places like California, most major employers were doing WFH long before it was required. Even in NY, Cuomo had ordered daily reductions in workplace employees from 25 to 50 to 75 to full SiP, so I'm not even sure what the precise date should be that we use to measure when SiP went into effect.

Nate Silver had a good anecdote about traveling from Kansas City back to NYC by car and observing that real world social distancing practices did not seem to vary by state as he made his way back from Missouri to New York, even though some states had SiP orders in effect and others did not. My suspicion is that there is less variation between how people are living their lives in Florida vs. California as we might expect based on the media coverage.