Ballotpedia’s coverage of COVID-19 includes how federal, state, and local governments are responding, and how those responses are influencing election rules and operations, political campaigns, the economy, schools, and more.
This article contains the following kinds of state government responses to the coronavirus pandemic in 2020:
The following was a list of executive orders issued in responses to the coronavirus outbreak as of June 29, 2020. This list includes executive orders issued by governors and state agencies.
Total number of executive orders issued in response to the coronavirus pandemic between February 2020 and June 29, 2020: 2065
Forty-three states issued statewide shelter-in-place, stay-at-home, closure, or shutdown orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[1] The map below highlights states that issued a stay-at-home order.
We classified New Mexico's stay-at-home order as active through November 30 because of the following language in the state's health orders since March: “all New Mexicans should be staying in their homes for all but the most essential activities and services.”[2] In practice, New Mexicans were permitted to leave their homes for a broad range of activities, even if it was not recommended.
With the November and December wave of new, stricter coronavirus orders, we decided to end our stay-at-home coverage to work on building comprehensive coverage of practical restrictions.
The map below highlights states based on the date that each began implementation of its reopening plan.
The map below depicts the number of bills related to the coronavirus impact that have been considered in each state. Hover over a state to see the exact number of bills. A darker shade of blue indicates a greater number of relevant bills. For state-specific details, click a state in the map below or select a state from the drop-down menu beneath the map. On doing so, a list of state legislation will display, including information about bill status and links to full text. This information is provided by BillTrack50.com. To return to the map, click "Back" in the upper righthand corner of the legislation list.
See below for a complete list of legislation related to the coronavirus pandemic. Bills are sorted alphabetically by state. To learn more about a particular bill, click its title. This information is provided by BillTrack50 and LegiScan.
The map below summarizes state legislative activity suspensions resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Hover over a state for additional details.
The map below shows the status of school reopenings and closures at the end of the 2019-2020 academic year.
The following map provides an overview of state court closures in response to the coronavirus outbreak
This page was last updated on July 1, 2020. At that time:
To view a state-specific timeline of government responses to the coronavirus pandemic, click a state in the map below.
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, several states announced the formation of multistate agreements or regional partnerships for reopening and lifting stay-at-home orders. According to announcements, the agreements were intended to enable states to work collaboratively and develop shared frameworks for how to reopen the region, though each coalition's approach may be different.
The map below shows the multistate agreements established to discuss reopening states after the coronavirus pandemic.
The chart below shows coronavirus statistics from countries across the world. The information is provided by Real Clear Politics.
Click the links below to explore official resources related to the coronavirus outbreak.