The scale of the orders

Every count is a floor

The governmental response to COVID-19 was the densest body of governmental commands on commerce, travel and assembly in the nation's history, and every count of it is a floor. By May 31, 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42 States and territories had issued mandatory stay-at-home orders reaching 2,355 of the nation's 3,233 counties, eight jurisdictions had issued advisory orders only and six none, "most jurisdictions issued multiple orders," and population movement fell in 97.6 percent of the counties with data.¹ The Council of State Governments counted 2,065 executive orders issued by governors and State agencies between February 2020 and June 29, 2020 alone, before four of the six claimable quarters had begun; forty-three governors issued stay-at-home or business-closure orders and seven (Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming) did not.² The Department of Health and Human Services' own dataset records 4,218 State and county policy-order entries between March 23, 2020 and August 31, 2021, and its curators stopped coding in the spring of 2021.³ The COVID AMP database catalogued nearly 50,000 policy measures worldwide, including more than 20,000 at the United States national and State level, 95 percent of them issued before November 23, 2021, and approximately 8,000 issued by United States counties.⁴ The position that few orders existed is not a close call on a contested record; it cannot be squared with the Government's own datasets.

Three rules govern every figure on this page. First, each figure is stated with its unit, because the sources count different things: a policy measure (one coded provision; a single order contains several), an executive order (one instrument), a policy-order action (one row for each policy type on each start or stop date), a jurisdiction, a county, an establishment or a person. Second, each figure carries its as-of date and its source, and the source's own limits are stated beside it. Third, none of these figures is a count of the orders that reached any particular employer or of the orders any employer relied on, and none is offered as one. The Library on this site states its own count. That number is the number of instruments The COVID Project retrieved, read and indexed, each graded by whether the issuing authority's own text was read; it is not a count of the orders issued nationally, which the sources below place in the tens of thousands.

The figures, with their units

The CDC's count of the stay-at-home orders

The CDC's count is the most conservative figure on this page and the most authoritative. Moreland and colleagues, writing in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report of September 4, 2020, coded the orders of the fifty States, the District and five territories between March 1 and May 31, 2020. Forty-two of the fifty-six jurisdictions issued mandatory stay-at-home orders; the first territorial order was Puerto Rico's, on March 15, and the first State order California's, on March 19; the orders reached 2,355 counties, 73 percent of the 3,233 in the country. Eight jurisdictions issued only an advisory, six issued none, and "[m]ost jurisdictions issued multiple orders during the observation period."⁵ The first State to let its order expire was Alaska, on April 24, 2020; 436 of the 2,355 counties (19 percent) had an order that expired on or before May 3; eight jurisdictions had mandatory orders that "extended beyond May 31"; and median population movement fell in 2,295 (97.6 percent) of the 2,351 counties with data.⁶ The Congressional Research Service cites the same article for "a list of state-level stay-at-home orders."⁷ The article counts one category of order, the stay-at-home order, for one quarter. It says nothing about the closure, capacity, gathering, face-covering, travel, school and health-care orders the same jurisdictions issued alongside it and after it, and eighty-one percent of the covered counties were still under a stay-at-home order after May 3, 2020.

The Council of State Governments' count of executive orders

Ballotpedia, drawing on research by the Council of State Governments, published a list of the executive orders "issued by governors and state agencies" in response to the pandemic as of June 29, 2020, and totalled it: "Total number of executive orders issued in response to the coronavirus pandemic between February 2020 and June 29, 2020: 2065."⁸ The unit is the instrument, not the provision. The count excludes every county, city, court and agency order below the State's executive branch and every order issued after June 29, 2020, which is to say the whole of five claimable quarters. Ballotpedia's companion page records that "[b]etween March and April 2020, 43 governors issued orders directing residents to stay at home and nonessential businesses to close," and names the seven States that did not: Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming.⁹ The seven issued business-closure, gathering, school and health-care orders of their own; the Library's State pages carry them.

The Department of Health and Human Services' dataset

The Department of Health and Human Services published, on HealthData.gov, a dataset titled COVID-19 State and County Policy Orders and described on its own page as "a manually curated dataset that provides a standardized view into state and county policy orders (executive orders, ordinances, etc.)."¹⁰ Read through its public interface on September 26, 2026, the dataset holds 4,218 rows: 1,707 at the State level and 2,511 at the county level; 3,191 "start" actions and 1,027 "stop" actions; 56 State and territory identifiers; 794 distinct counties in 35 States; dates from March 23, 2020 to August 31, 2021.¹¹ The unit is the action. A single order that closed non-essential businesses, capped gatherings and required face coverings generated one row for each policy type when it took effect and another for each when it expired, so the 4,218 rows are neither 4,218 orders nor a count of what any employer faced. The dataset's metadata states that it "is provided as-is," that the Government "makes no representations to its correctness or completeness," and that it "has been deprecated"; its rows were last updated December 8, 2022.¹²

Read by quarter, the rows show where the curators stopped: 1,698 start actions and 656 stop actions between March 23 and June 30, 2020; 642 and 250 in the third quarter of 2020; 409 and 68 in the fourth; 404 and 24 in the first quarter of 2021; 2 and 25 in the second quarter of 2021; none and 4 in the third.¹³ The near-absence of 2021 rows measures the dataset, not the orders: the KFF files below record 35 emergency declarations and nine statewide face-covering requirements in force on July 2, 2021, and the Library's State pages carry the instruments. The dataset is a floor for 2020 and no measure of 2021. Its most frequent policy types are themselves a description of what the orders did: Shelter in Place, 860 rows; Food and Drink, 353; Non-Essential Businesses, 312; Outdoor and Recreation, 305; Mask Requirement, 277; Entertainment, 253; Childcare (K-12), 239; Houses of Worship, 167; Manufacturing, 122; Day Care, 115; Gyms, 97; Personal Care, 62; Suspended Elective Medical Dental Procedures, 32; Nursing Homes, 31.¹⁴

COVID AMP

The COVID Analysis and Mapping of Policies database, built at Georgetown University's Center for Global Health Science and Security and described in Scientific Data on July 27, 2023, "includes nearly 50,000 policy measures from 150 countries, 124 intermediate areas, and 235 local areas between January 2020 and June 2022."¹⁶ For the United States the authors write that "to the best of our knowledge, the dataset contains a comprehensive set of policies implemented for each of the U.S. states, Puerto Rico, and Guam from January 2020 to June 2022, with over 20,000 policies captured at the national and state level in these jurisdictions," and that "[a]mong U.S. state and national policies, 95% were issued prior to November 23, 2021"; the caption to the paper's first figure states that "[a]ll 50 states and territories were coded comprehensively."¹⁷ The same paragraph documents "approximately 8,000 policies" for United States counties and "approximately 1,400 policies" for tribal areas, with the limit stated: "comprehensive coverage is limited to California, Washington D.C., Maryland, Nevada, and Virginia from January to December 2020."¹⁸ The unit is the coded policy measure; one order contains several. Two things follow. The United States policy universe above the county level is counted in the tens of thousands by a source with no stake in any tax claim. And 95 percent of that universe was issued before November 23, 2021, which is to say within the six quarters for which Congress enacted the credit or in the eight weeks that followed them: the orders were a phenomenon of the claimable period, not of the years after it.

Ballotpedia's State counts

Ballotpedia's State-level pages, read on September 26, 2026 and captured as exhibits with their source addresses, supply five further State counts, each in the unit the page uses. Thirty-nine States issued statewide face-covering requirements; all thirty-nine allowed them to expire, and five reinstated one after expiry.¹⁹ Twenty-seven States and the District enacted travel restrictions beginning in March 2020; the New York, New Jersey and Connecticut quarantine list stood at 22 States in July 2020 and reached 35 States and territories on October 20, 2020.²⁰ All fifty States declared emergencies, and the last had expired by December 2023; the 2021 terminations are dated on the page and listed in the third-quarter section below.²¹ Eight States had bans on school face-covering requirements in force at the beginning of August 2021; by August 1, 2022 seven States banned such requirements and forty-two left them to local authorities.²² Nineteen States imposed vaccination requirements on some or all State employees between August 2021 and December 2023, Virginia's directive of August 5, 2021 requiring vaccination or weekly testing; twenty States banned proof-of-vaccination requirements, and six (California, Hawaii, Illinois, New York, Oregon and Washington) facilitated them.²³ A ban on proof-of-vaccination requirements is itself an order limiting how commerce is conducted.

The trackers that publish no total

Four national trackers publish no numeric total, and this analysis captured each to establish that fact rather than to borrow a number from it. The National Academy for State Health Policy's chart "describes each state's initial stay-at-home order, penalties for noncompliance, dates for phased re-openings including the resumption of nonessential medical procedures, mask requirements and any delays or reclosings resulting from the resurgence of coronavirus infections," and gives no count.²⁴ The National Governors Association's compilation covers actions "through 31 July 2020" and states that it "is not intended to be exhaustive."²⁵ The National Conference of State Legislatures' database covers bills "introduced in the 50 states and the District of Columbia," which are legislation and not orders.²⁶ The Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker measures the stringency of policy by jurisdiction and day for more than 180 countries and more than 200 subnational jurisdictions, every United States State among them, from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2022; it contains no count of orders and is cited here only for the breadth and duration of the response.²⁷ KFF's issue-brief page now redirects to its global tracker; its fifty-State counts survive in its published data files, which are the exhibits used in the next section.

The fifty States and the District at each quarter boundary

KFF compiled its State Social Distancing Actions "from a review of state executive orders, guidance documents, policy bulletins, and news releases" for the fifty States and the District, and published the coded file on each update date. The "United States" summary row of six dated files, each captured as an exhibit, gives the fifty-one-jurisdiction status on or beside the first and last day of every claimable quarter.²⁸

On September 21, 2021, nine days before the last claimable quarter ended, KFF's per-State rows record emergency declarations in force in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming, and statewide face-covering requirements in eleven jurisdictions: Oregon for all persons; the District, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, New Mexico and Washington indoors; California, Connecticut, Nevada and New York for unvaccinated persons.²⁹ Two limits of the source are stated with it. KFF's status is as of its update date and can lag a State's action by days: Florida is coded as holding an emergency declaration on July 2, 2021 although its emergency expired June 26, 2021. And KFF's summary arithmetic is occasionally off: the July 2, 2021 summary row reads "Yes (35); No (14)" while the fifty-one State rows count 35 and 16.³⁰ The figures are cited to the file and its date; any statement about a particular State on this site rests on the State's own instrument in the Library, not on KFF's coding.

The Government's own agencies named the orders

The Department of Commerce, the Department of Labor, the Comptroller General, the Federal Reserve and Congress's own research service each attributed the economic collapse of 2020 and the constraints of 2021 to governmental orders by name. These are not the words of a claimant. They are the words the Government's statistical and audit agencies chose while the orders were in force.

The Department of Commerce

The Bureau of Economic Analysis reported on July 30, 2020 that "[r]eal gross domestic product (GDP) decreased at an annual rate of 32.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020," the largest quarterly decline in the series, and attributed it in terms: "The decline in second quarter GDP reflected the response to COVID-19, as 'stay-at-home' orders issued in March and April were partially lifted in some areas of the country in May and June."³¹ The third estimate revised the decline to 31.4 percent, which the Congressional Research Service records as "the highest recorded single quarterly decline in real GDP."³²

The Department of Labor

The Bureau of Labor Statistics wrote on May 8, 2020 that "[t]otal nonfarm payroll employment fell by 20.5 million in April, and the unemployment rate rose to 14.7 percent," changes that "reflect the effects of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it"; the number on temporary layoff "increased about ten-fold to 18.1 million."³³ A month later it described May's gains as "a limited resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed in March and April due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it," with employment still "13 percent below its February level."³⁴ Its 2020 Business Response Survey, collected from private-sector establishments between July 20 and September 30, 2020, found that "52 percent of establishments (4.4 million) told employees not to work (with or without pay)," that "56 percent of establishments (4.7 million) experienced a decrease in demand for their products or services," that "31 percent of establishments (employing 68.6 million workers) increased telework," that 19 percent of establishments, 1.6 million, "experienced a government-mandated closure," with 26 million workers employed at them, and that 36 percent experienced a shortage of supplies or inputs.³⁵ Its Business Employment Dynamics series recorded that "[f]rom March 2020 to June 2020, gross job losses from closing and contracting private-sector establishments were 20.4 million," that those losses "represented 17.0 percent of private-sector employment," and that closing establishments alone lost 2.9 million jobs.³⁶

The Comptroller General

The Government Accountability Office wrote in June 2020 that "millions have lost their jobs due to stay-at-home orders and business closures aimed at 'flattening the curve,'" and that "[w]idespread business closures led to immediate and substantial job losses and have led to growing losses in revenue for those businesses."³⁷ In January 2021 it reported "more than 10.7 million unemployed individuals" in December 2020 against "nearly 5.8 million" at the start of that year, with new cases averaging "about 225,000 per day" in early January 2021.³⁸ In July 2021 it wrote that labor-market conditions "remained worse relative to the prepandemic period" and that the recovery "remains fragile."³⁹

The Federal Reserve

The Beige Books of the Board of Governors record the orders from the first quarter of the period to the last. April 15, 2020: "Economic activity contracted sharply and abruptly across all regions in the United States as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic." May 27, 2020: "Consumer spending fell further as mandated closures of retail establishments remained largely in place during most of the survey period"; Districts reported "restrictions on home showings in many areas" and "reduced production capacity at meat-processing plants due to closures and social distancing measures"; "[e]mployment continued to decrease in all Districts ... as social distancing and business closures affected employment at many firms." December 2, 2020: contacts cited "mandated restrictions (recent and prospective)," and the case surge "had precipitated more school and plant closings." January 13, 2021: declines in retail and leisure "largely owing to the recent surge in COVID-19 cases and stricter containment measures"; "[r]estrictions on indoor dining combined with the onset of cold weather have hit restaurants hard." April 14, 2021: tourism "bolstered by ... an easing of pandemic-related restrictions"; "widespread supply chain disruptions." July 14, 2021: "Supply-side disruptions became more widespread, including shortages of materials and labor, delivery delays, and low inventories of many consumer goods." September 8, 2021: the deceleration "was largely attributable to a pullback in dining out, travel, and tourism in most Districts, reflecting safety concerns due to the rise of the Delta variant, and, in a few cases, international travel restrictions," with other sectors "constrained by supply disruptions and labor shortages, as opposed to softening demand."⁴⁰

The Board's Monetary Policy Report of July 9, 2021 states the mechanism by which the spring of 2020 reached the summer of 2021: "With the onset of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, many manufacturers sharply curtailed production in expectation of a long downturn and a drawn-out recovery. Companies laid off workers, idled plants, and canceled orders for materials. ... by late 2020, factories in some industries were scrambling to find the workers, parts, and materials to fill a rush of new orders. ... The massive influx of goods combined with COVID-19-related staffing issues have overwhelmed U.S. ports."⁴¹ The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, introducing its Global Supply Chain Pressure Index, attributed the pressure to "[f]actory shutdowns (particularly in Asia) and widespread lockdowns and mobility restrictions," and dated its rise to the winter of 2020 "and the subsequent recovery period."⁴²

The Congressional Research Service

The Congressional Research Service wrote that the labor-market deterioration "corresponded with various advisory or mandated stay-at-home orders implemented in response to the COVID-19 pandemic," citing the CDC article above for the list of them; that "[t]o prevent the spread of COVID-19, lockdown orders were issued in many parts of the country and travel restrictions were put in place"; and, on May 15, 2020, that "roughly 20 states and the District of Columbia continue to operate under so-called 'stay-at-home' orders," while "[i]n other states, some counties and cities remain subject to similar orders."⁴³ On the world outside the United States it wrote that "[a]t one point, more than 80 countries had closed their borders to arrivals from countries with infections, ordered businesses to close, instructed their populations to self-quarantine, and closed schools," and that global trade fell 5.3 percent in 2020.⁴⁴

Schools and travel

Ohio ordered the first statewide school closure on March 12, 2020. By March 25, 2020 every public school building in the United States was closed. Forty-eight States, four territories, the District and the Department of Defense Education Activity closed for the rest of the 2019-20 school year, and "[a]t their peak, the closures affected at least 55.1 million students in 124,000 U.S. public and private schools."⁴⁵ Transportation Security Administration checkpoint throughput fell from 2,353,150 persons on March 1, 2020 to 113,147 on April 14, 2020, a decline of 95.2 percent, and stood at 914,456 on December 31, 2020; the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reported that "U.S. airlines carried 557 million fewer passengers in 2020 than in 2019, down 60% year-to-year," 369 million against 927 million, with international enplanements down 70 percent.⁴⁶

The Census Bureau

The Census Bureau fielded the Small Business Pulse Survey within seven weeks of the national emergency declaration. In its first week, April 26 to May 2, 2020, 51.4 percent of small businesses reported a large negative effect and 38.5 percent a moderate negative effect; "44.9% of business experienced [supply-chain] disruptions," concentrated in retail trade (65.8 percent) and health care and social assistance (61.4 percent).⁴⁷ In the survey week ending July 18, 2021, 38.8 percent of small businesses reported domestic supplier delays, up from 30.9 percent in the survey period that ended in April 2021; 15.9 percent reported foreign supplier delays; 17.7 percent expected to need new supply-chain options within six months; domestic supplier delays reached 64.6 percent of manufacturers, 59.8 percent of retailers, 58.5 percent of construction firms and 51.4 percent of accommodation and food-service businesses.⁴⁸

The facts and circumstances, quarter by quarter

The second quarter of 2020

Every measure the Government keeps recorded the same event. Nonfarm payroll employment fell by 20.5 million in April 2020; leisure and hospitality lost 7.7 million jobs (47 percent), food services and drinking places 5.5 million, education and health services 2.5 million, health care 1.4 million, offices of dentists 503,000, offices of physicians 243,000, professional and business services 2.1 million, retail trade 2.1 million, manufacturing 1.3 million and construction 975,000.⁴⁹ Gross job losses from March to June 2020 were 20.4 million, 17.0 percent of private-sector employment.⁵⁰ Gross domestic product fell at a 32.9 percent annual rate, which the Bureau of Economic Analysis attributed to "'stay-at-home' orders issued in March and April."⁵¹ In May 2020, 35.4 percent of employed persons teleworked because of the pandemic; the share was 31.3 percent in June, 26.4 in July and 24.3 in August.⁵² On May 15, 2020, "roughly 20 states and the District of Columbia" remained under stay-at-home orders, and eight jurisdictions' mandatory orders ran past May 31.⁵³ On June 30, 2020, the last day of the quarter, every one of the fifty-one jurisdictions held an emergency declaration, twenty required face coverings of the general public and twenty more of certain employees, twelve quarantined arriving travelers, and six kept their original stay-at-home orders in place.⁵⁴

The third quarter of 2020

The Bureau of Labor Statistics collected its 2020 Business Response Survey in this quarter, between July 20 and September 30, 2020, and found 1.6 million establishments that had "experienced a government-mandated closure" and 4.4 million that had told employees not to work.⁵⁵ On October 1, 2020, KFF coded eighteen jurisdictions as imposing new restrictions; eleven had new gathering limits, nine had newly closed their bars, seven had imposed new bar service limits, six new restaurant service limits, and thirty-three required face coverings of the general public; all fifty-one held emergency declarations.⁵⁶

The fourth quarter of 2020

On January 4, 2021, KFF coded thirty-nine jurisdictions as having imposed new restrictions: four new stay-at-home orders; eighteen new business closures or limits; thirty-four with gathering caps at fifty persons or fewer, six of them prohibiting all gatherings; seven newly closed to indoor dining and twenty-two under new service limits; sixteen with bars closed; forty requiring face coverings of the general public.⁵⁷ The Federal Reserve wrote on December 2, 2020 that activity "began to slow in early November as COVID-19 cases surged," that contacts cited "mandated restrictions (recent and prospective)," and that the surge "had precipitated more school and plant closings" and "ongoing disruptions and delays among short-staffed producers and shippers."⁵⁸ The Comptroller General counted "more than 10.7 million unemployed individuals" in December 2020.⁵⁹

The first quarter of 2021

The Federal Reserve wrote on January 13, 2021 of "the recent surge in COVID-19 cases and stricter containment measures," of "renewed restrictions," of "[r]estrictions on indoor dining" that "have hit restaurants hard," and of "increasing reports of supply chain challenges."⁶⁰ On April 5, 2021, five days after the quarter closed, KFF coded twenty-five jurisdictions with non-essential businesses open only with limits, twenty-six with gathering caps, twenty-two with restaurant service limits, thirty-one with statewide face-covering requirements and forty-nine with emergency declarations.⁶¹ Against this record, on March 11, 2021, Congress re-enacted the identical suspension test for the third and fourth quarters of 2021.⁶²

The second quarter of 2021

The Federal Reserve dated the spring pickup to "an easing of pandemic-related restrictions" and reported "widespread supply chain disruptions."⁶³ In June 2021, 6.2 million persons reported to the Bureau of Labor Statistics that they had been unable to work because their employer closed or lost business due to the pandemic.⁶⁴ At the quarter's close, KFF's July 2, 2021 file coded thirty-five jurisdictions with emergency declarations, nine with statewide face-covering requirements (Hawaii indoors; California, Connecticut, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Washington for unvaccinated persons), Hawaii quarantining all arriving travelers and Kansas and Rhode Island quarantining arrivals from certain States, Hawaii limiting non-essential businesses and prohibiting gatherings of more than ten, and Delaware maintaining a gathering limit above fifty persons.⁶⁵

The third quarter of 2021

Emergency declarations were in force in thirty-five jurisdictions on July 2, 2021 and in twenty-five on September 21, 2021; statewide face-covering requirements in nine and then eleven; Hawaii quarantined every arriving traveler, capped gatherings, limited businesses and was coded "Imposing New Restrictions" nine days before the quarter ended.⁶⁶ Eight States had bans on school face-covering requirements in force at the start of August 2021; State-employee vaccination mandates began that month, Virginia's on August 5; twenty States banned proof-of-vaccination requirements and six ran vaccination-status programs.⁶⁷ In July 2021, "5.2 million persons reported that they had been unable to work because their employer closed or lost business due to the pandemic," 13.2 percent of employed persons teleworked because of it, and employment stood 5.7 million below February 2020; in September 2021 the figures were 5.0 million, 13.2 percent, and "down by 5.0 million, or 3.3 percent, from its pre-pandemic level," with 1.6 million persons kept from looking for work in each month.⁶⁸ In the Business Response Survey collected between July 27 and September 30, 2021, 17.5 percent of establishments required vaccination of some or all employees, 34.5 percent had increased telework and 24.6 percent had adopted flexible or staggered hours.⁶⁹ In the week ending July 18, 2021, 38.8 percent of small businesses reported domestic supplier delays.⁷⁰ The Federal Reserve wrote on July 14, 2021 that "[s]upply-side disruptions became more widespread," on September 8, 2021 that the deceleration reflected "in a few cases, international travel restrictions" and sectors "constrained by supply disruptions and labor shortages," and in its Monetary Policy Report of July 9, 2021 that the production curtailed in the spring of 2020 had left factories "scrambling to find the workers, parts, and materials" and the ports "overwhelmed"; the Comptroller General wrote that the recovery "remains fragile."⁷¹

The third quarter of 2021 in the scale sources

The national sources on this page, read on their own and without the State, metropolitan and federal instruments the Library carries, establish the following for July 1 through September 30, 2021. In force: emergency declarations in thirty-five jurisdictions on July 2 and twenty-five on September 21; statewide face-covering and exposure-control requirements in nine and then eleven jurisdictions; Hawaii's traveler quarantine, gathering cap and business limits; Kansas's and Rhode Island's quarantines of arrivals from certain States on July 2; the 2021-22 school face-covering and quarantine orders and the eight State bans on them; State-employee and health-care-worker vaccination-or-testing mandates from August 2021; proof-of-vaccination bans in twenty States and programs in six.⁷²⁷³ The federal layer, which never lapsed in the six quarters, is inventoried on the federal pages of this site.

Ballotpedia dates the 2021 emergency terminations: Wisconsin, March 31 (by court decision); Alaska and North Dakota, April 30; Oklahoma, May 4; Arkansas, May 30 (reinstated July 29; expired again September 27); New Jersey, June 4 (a limited emergency continued; reinstated January 11, 2022); Pennsylvania, June 10 (by the legislature; regulatory waivers extended to September 30, 2021 by HB 854); New Hampshire, June 12; Vermont, June 15; New York, June 24 (new emergency November 26, 2021); Florida, June 26; Maine, Montana, South Dakota and Virginia, June 30 (Virginia's new order January 10, 2022); Georgia, July 1 (public-health emergency ended; economic-recovery emergency renewed); Maryland, July 1 (original order); Alabama, July 6 (new order to December 31, 2021); Colorado, July 8 (health emergency order); Missouri, August 27 (original ended; a narrower emergency issued).⁷⁴ Twenty-five jurisdictions had not terminated theirs when the quarter ended, and four of those that did (Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia and Missouri) issued new or narrower emergencies during the quarter.

Congress legislated against this record twice. On March 11, 2021, in a quarter that closed with thirty-one statewide face-covering requirements and forty-nine emergency declarations in force, it enacted I.R.C. § 3134 and re-enacted the Suspension Clause word for word for wages paid after June 30, 2021.⁷⁵ On November 15, 2021, it ended the credit for the fourth quarter of 2021 and left the third quarter in place.⁷⁶ A reading under which no order was in effect in the third quarter of 2021 is a reading under which Congress enacted, and eight months later preserved, a credit for a quarter it knew to be empty.

What this analysis does not count

Several figures in circulation are not counts of orders and are not used here. Counts of county-days in policy-surveillance datasets measure duration, not instruments. Stringency indices measure severity. Counts of bills introduced in State legislatures measure legislation, most of which never became law and none of which is an order. Counts of county emergency declarations measure declarations, which this site never treats as orders; the operative instruments stand on their own. The figure for Transportation Security Administration checkpoint throughput on April 14, 2020 that circulated in the press that month differs from the agency's revised table, and the revised table is cited. The April 2020 unemployment rate is 14.7 percent in the Bureau of Labor Statistics release and 14.8 percent as revised; each is cited to its source.⁷⁷ Where a source's summary arithmetic is off, as KFF's July 2, 2021 row is by two, the discrepancy is stated rather than smoothed. Where a source's word is one this analysis does not use in its own voice, the word is quoted and attributed.

What the Library counts

The Library on this site indexes the governmental instruments The COVID Project retrieved, read and graded, and it states its own count on its own pages. That count is what it is: the number of instruments retrieved and indexed, each shown as "Primary source read" when the issuing authority's own text was read or "Confirmed from a secondary source" when it was read from an identifiable secondary record. It is not, and is not offered as, a count of the orders that reached any employer or of the orders issued nationally. The sources on this page place the national universe in the tens of thousands of policy measures. The Library is a verified subset of that universe, and every count on this page is a floor: the true number of instruments is not lower than any of them.

The Service's sentence about the quarter

There were no government orders related to COVID-19 in effect during the quarter which could have fully or partially suspended your trade or business.

This is the Service's form language on the suspension prong in Letters 105C issued since 2024.⁷⁸ It is a statement of fact about the public record of the United States, and it is measured against that record.

The United States' own description of the orders the statute reaches is the description this page counts. In its opposition and cross-motion for summary judgment in Stenson Tamaddon, LLC v. IRS, No. 2:24-cv-01123-SPL (D. Ariz. Jan. 6, 2025), ECF No. 44 ("Doc. 44"), the United States described the qualifying instruments as

"orders, proclamations, or decrees from the Federal government or any State or local government" if they limited "commerce, travel, or group meetings (for commercial, social, religious, or other purposes) due to the coronavirus disease."

Doc. 44 at 12

In its answering brief in the Ninth Circuit it described the test the same way:

In general, entitlement to the ERC turns on whether an employer's business (1) is of an eligible type and (2) either (A) was at least partially suspended due to government orders addressing the pandemic and limiting commerce, travel or group meetings, or (B) faced a marked decline in gross receipts compared to the same time of year in 2019.

Br. for Appellees at 4-5, No. 25-4217 (9th Cir. Jan. 30, 2026)

Orders, proclamations and decrees from the federal, State and local governments limiting commerce, travel or group meetings: that is the universe the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Council of State Governments, the Department of Health and Human Services, the COVID AMP researchers and KFF counted, in the tens of thousands, and it is the universe the Library carries instrument by instrument.⁸¹

1. Moreland et al., Timing of State and Territorial COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Orders and Changes in Population Movement, United States, March 1-May 31, 2020, 69 MMWR 1198, 1198-1200 (Sept. 4, 2020) (Ex. LAW-201). ↩
2. Ballotpedia, Executive orders issued by governors and state agencies in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020 (Council of State Governments data; 2,065 orders, Feb. 2020 to June 29, 2020) (Ex. LAW-203); Ballotpedia, States that issued lockdown and stay-at-home orders in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020 (43 governors; seven States without stay-at-home or closure orders) (Ex. LAW-204). ↩
3. U.S. Dep't of Health & Human Servs., HealthData.gov, COVID-19 State and County Policy Orders, dataset gyqz-9u7n (Ex. LAW-205); row counts read from the dataset's public API (healthdata.gov/resource/gyqz-9u7n.json) on Sept. 26, 2026. ↩
4. Katz et al., Open data for COVID-19 policy analysis and mapping, 10 Sci. Data 491 (July 27, 2023) (COVID AMP), Abstract and Technical Validation paragraph (Ex. LAW-202). ↩
5. Moreland et al., 69 MMWR at 1198-99 (Ex. LAW-201). ↩
6. Moreland et al., 69 MMWR at 1199-1200 (Ex. LAW-201). ↩
7. Cong. Research Serv., R46554, Unemployment Rates During the COVID-19 Pandemic, at 2-3 & n.6 (updated Aug. 20, 2021) (Ex. LAW-214). ↩
8. Ballotpedia, Executive orders issued by governors and state agencies in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020 (page last updated June 29, 2020; read Sept. 26, 2026) (Ex. LAW-203). ↩
9. Ballotpedia, States that issued lockdown and stay-at-home orders in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020 (Ex. LAW-204). ↩
10. HHS HealthData.gov, COVID-19 State and County Policy Orders (gyqz-9u7n), dataset page (Ex. LAW-205). ↩
11. Public API of dataset gyqz-9u7n (healthdata.gov/resource/gyqz-9u7n.json), read Sept. 26, 2026: 4,218 rows; policy_level state 1,707, county 2,511; start 3,191, stop 1,027; 56 distinct State identifiers; 794 distinct county FIPS codes; dates Mar. 23, 2020 to Aug. 31, 2021. The dataset page is Ex. LAW-205. ↩
12. Dataset metadata, healthdata.gov/api/views/gyqz-9u7n.json ("This data set is provided as-is. Due to the evolving nature of policy orders, the US Government makes no representations to its correctness or completeness. This dataset has been deprecated."); Ex. LAW-205 ("Data Last Updated December 8, 2022"). ↩
13. Public API of dataset gyqz-9u7n, rows grouped by quarter and by start or stop, read Sept. 26, 2026; the two 2021 Q3 rows are "stop" entries for Michigan (July 1, 2021) and Missouri (Aug. 31, 2021). ↩
14. Public API of dataset gyqz-9u7n, rows grouped by policy type, read Sept. 26, 2026 (the dataset also codes reopening stages as policy types: "Phase 2," 142 rows; "Phase 3," 123; "Phase 1," 79; "Phase 4," 78; and "State of Emergency," 51). ↩
15. Opening Br. at 4 (citing 2-ER-189-190), Stenson Tamaddon, LLC v. IRS, No. 25-4217 (9th Cir. Sept. 17, 2025) ("A network of more than 4,200 orders at the state and local level limited most businesses and therefore threatened their ongoing existence."). ↩
16. Katz et al., 10 Sci. Data 491, Abstract (Ex. LAW-202). ↩
17. Katz et al., 10 Sci. Data 491, Technical Validation paragraph and Fig. 1 caption (Ex. LAW-202). ↩
18. Katz et al., 10 Sci. Data 491, Technical Validation paragraph (Ex. LAW-202). ↩
19. Ballotpedia, State-level mask requirements in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020-2022 ("In total, 39 states issued statewide mask requirements. ... Five states that allowed a statewide order to fully expire later reinstated a mask order.") (Ex. LAW-234). ↩
20. Ballotpedia, Travel restrictions issued by states in response to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2020-2022 ("Beginning in March 2020, 27 states and Washington D.C. enacted travel restrictions during the pandemic."; the 22-State list of July 2020; the 35-jurisdiction list of Oct. 20, 2020 as reported on the page) (Ex. LAW-235). ↩
21. Ballotpedia, State emergency health orders during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2021-2023 ("Governors and state agencies in all 50 states issued orders declaring active emergencies in response to the coronavirus pandemic. ... As of December 2023, COVID-19 emergency orders had expired in 50 states.") (Ex. LAW-236). ↩
22. Ballotpedia, School responses to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic during the 2021-2022 academic year ("At the beginning of August 2021, Florida, Iowa, South Carolina, and five other states had school mask requirement bans in place. ... Forty-two states left mask requirements in schools up to local authorities. Seven states banned school mask requirements.") (Ex. LAW-237). ↩
23. Ballotpedia, State employee vaccine requirements during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2021-2022 (Ex. LAW-251); Ballotpedia, State government policies about vaccine requirements (vaccine passports), 2021-2022 ("Twenty states banned proof-of-vaccination requirements.") (Ex. LAW-252). ↩
24. Nat'l Acad. for State Health Policy, 2021 COVID-19 State Restrictions, Re-openings, and Mask Requirements (chart page; tracker entry dated Jan. 11, 2022) (Ex. LAW-238). ↩
25. Nat'l Governors Ass'n, Coronavirus: What You Need To Know, State Actions (through 31 July 2020) (Ex. LAW-239). ↩
26. Nat'l Conference of State Legislatures, State Action on Coronavirus (COVID-19) (legislation database; updated Dec. 1, 2022) (Ex. LAW-240). ↩
27. Blavatnik School of Government, Univ. of Oxford, COVID-19 Government Response Tracker (OxCGRT), project page (Ex. LAW-241); Hale et al., A global panel database of pandemic policies (Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker), 5 Nat. Hum. Behav. 529 (2021). ↩
28. KFF, State COVID-19 Data and Policy Actions, State Social Distancing Actions, dated data files (KFFData/COVID-19-Data, branch kff_master), "United States" summary row: June 30, 2020 (Ex. LAW-230); Oct. 1, 2020 (Ex. LAW-231); Jan. 4, 2021 (Ex. LAW-232); Apr. 5, 2021 (Ex. LAW-233); July 2, 2021 (Ex. LAW-246); Sept. 21, 2021 (Ex. LAW-247). Each exhibit is KFF's file rendered without alteration, with the source address and retrieval date on the page. ↩
29. KFF, State Social Distancing Actions, Sept. 21, 2021 file, per-State rows (Ex. LAW-247); the Oct. 5, 2021 file is identical. ↩
30. KFF, State Social Distancing Actions, July 2, 2021 file, summary row and per-State rows (Ex. LAW-246); Florida's emergency expiration of June 26, 2021 is dated by Ballotpedia (Ex. LAW-236). ↩
31. Bureau of Econ. Analysis, Gross Domestic Product, 2nd Quarter 2020 (Advance Estimate) and Annual Update, BEA 20-37 (July 30, 2020) (Ex. LAW-253). ↩
32. Cong. Research Serv., R46606, COVID-19 and the U.S. Economy, at 2, 5 (updated May 11, 2021) ("the second quarter annualized decline in gross domestic product (GDP) of 31.4% ... was the highest recorded single quarterly decline in real GDP") (Ex. LAW-215). ↩
33. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Employment Situation, April 2020, USDL-20-0815 (May 8, 2020) (Ex. LAW-206). ↩
34. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Employment Situation, May 2020, USDL-20-1140 (June 5, 2020) (Ex. LAW-254). ↩
35. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Response Survey to the Coronavirus Pandemic, 2020 Results (data collected July 20-Sept. 30, 2020; reference period Jan. 1, 2020 to the survey date) (Ex. LAW-207). The exhibit is the Dec. 15, 2020 capture of the results page and carries the 52 percent, 56 percent, 31 percent and 26 million sentences; the 19 percent (1.6 million) and 36 percent figures were read from the live results page on Sept. 26, 2026. ↩
36. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, Second Quarter 2020, USDL-21-0135 (Jan. 27, 2021) (Ex. LAW-208). ↩
37. U.S. Gov't Accountability Office, GAO-20-625, COVID-19: Opportunities to Improve Federal Response and Recovery Efforts, at 3, 10 (June 25, 2020) (Ex. LAW-213). ↩
38. U.S. Gov't Accountability Office, GAO-21-265, COVID-19: Critical Vaccine Distribution, Supply Chain, Program Integrity, and Other Challenges Require Focused Federal Attention, Highlights (Jan. 28, 2021) (Ex. LAW-228). ↩
39. U.S. Gov't Accountability Office, GAO-21-551, COVID-19: Continued Attention Needed to Enhance Federal Preparedness, Response, Service Delivery, and Program Integrity, Highlights (July 19, 2021) (Ex. LAW-227). ↩
40. Bd. of Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., The Beige Book, National Summary at 1: Apr. 15, 2020 (Ex. LAW-210); May 27, 2020 (Ex. LAW-218); Dec. 2, 2020 (Ex. LAW-219); Jan. 13, 2021 (National Summary and District reports) (Ex. LAW-249); Apr. 14, 2021 (Ex. LAW-250); July 14, 2021 (Ex. LAW-220); Sept. 8, 2021 (Ex. LAW-211). ↩
41. Bd. of Governors of the Fed. Reserve Sys., Monetary Policy Report (July 9, 2021), box, Supply Chain Bottlenecks in U.S. Manufacturing and Trade, at 15 (Ex. LAW-221). ↩
42. Benigno, di Giovanni, Groen & Noble, A New Barometer of Global Supply Chain Pressures, Fed. Reserve Bank of N.Y., Liberty Street Economics (Jan. 4, 2022) (Ex. LAW-222). ↩
43. Cong. Research Serv., R46554, at 2-3 & n.6 (Ex. LAW-214); Cong. Research Serv., R46606, at 2 (Ex. LAW-215); Cong. Research Serv., LSB10469, Federal Authority to Lift or Modify State and Local COVID-19 "Stay-at-Home" Orders: Frequently Asked Questions (May 15, 2020) (Ex. LAW-244). ↩
44. Cong. Research Serv., R46270, Global Economic Effects of COVID-19, at 2, 6 (updated Nov. 10, 2021) (Ex. LAW-216). ↩
45. Education Week, The Coronavirus Spring: The Historic Closing of U.S. Schools (A Timeline) (July 1, 2020) (Ex. LAW-229); Education Week, Map: Coronavirus and School Closures in 2019-2020 (tracked through May 15, 2020) (Ex. LAW-212). ↩
46. Transp. Sec. Admin., 2020 TSA checkpoint travel numbers (table as revised by TSA; the page notes that "Archived Data has been updated including Known Crewmembers and later flight travel numbers") (Ex. LAW-225); Bureau of Transp. Statistics, Full Year 2020 and December 2020 U.S. Airline Traffic Data (Mar. 11, 2021) (Ex. LAW-226). ↩
47. Buffington, Dennis, Dinlersoz, Foster & Klimek, Measuring the Effect of COVID-19 on U.S. Small Businesses: The Small Business Pulse Survey, U.S. Census Bureau, CES Working Paper 20-16 (May 2020) (single-location employer businesses with 1-499 employees; survey week Apr. 26-May 2, 2020) (Ex. LAW-209). ↩
48. Callen, Census Bureau's Small Business Pulse Survey Reveals Delays From Domestic, Foreign Suppliers, U.S. Census Bureau (Aug. 9, 2021) (survey week ending July 18, 2021) (Ex. LAW-243); U.S. Census Bureau, Small Business Pulse Survey, program page (April 2020-April 2022) (Ex. LAW-242). ↩
49. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Employment Situation, April 2020 (May 8, 2020) (Ex. LAW-206). ↩
50. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Employment Dynamics, Second Quarter 2020 (Jan. 27, 2021) (Ex. LAW-208). ↩
51. Bureau of Econ. Analysis, BEA 20-37 (July 30, 2020) (Ex. LAW-253). ↩
52. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Economics Daily, One-quarter of the employed teleworked in August 2020 because of COVID-19 pandemic (Sept. 15, 2020) (Current Population Survey supplemental question: "At any time in the last 4 weeks, did you telework or work at home for pay because of the coronavirus pandemic?") (Ex. LAW-245) (the monthly percentages sit in the article's chart and were read from the article on Sept. 26, 2026). ↩
53. Cong. Research Serv., LSB10469 (May 15, 2020) (Ex. LAW-244); Moreland et al., 69 MMWR at 1199-1200 (Ex. LAW-201). ↩
54. KFF, State Social Distancing Actions, June 30, 2020 file, summary row (Ex. LAW-230). ↩
55. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Response Survey, 2020 Results (Ex. LAW-207); see note 35 on the provenance of each figure. ↩
56. KFF, State Social Distancing Actions, Oct. 1, 2020 file, summary row (Ex. LAW-231). ↩
57. KFF, State Social Distancing Actions, Jan. 4, 2021 file, summary row (Ex. LAW-232) (gathering caps: all gatherings prohibited 6; more than 10 prohibited 20; more than 25 prohibited 3; more than 50 prohibited 5). ↩
58. The Beige Book (Dec. 2, 2020), National Summary at 1 (Ex. LAW-219). ↩
59. GAO-21-265, Highlights (Ex. LAW-228). ↩
60. The Beige Book (Jan. 13, 2021), National Summary at 1 and District reports (Ex. LAW-249). ↩
61. KFF, State Social Distancing Actions, Apr. 5, 2021 file, summary row (Ex. LAW-233). ↩
62. American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Pub. L. 117-2, § 9651, 135 Stat. 4, 176 (Mar. 11, 2021) (Ex. LAW-003) (enacting I.R.C. § 3134; the Suspension Clause at § 3134(c)(2)(A)(ii)(I), 135 Stat. at 177). ↩
63. The Beige Book (Apr. 14, 2021), National Summary at 1 (Ex. LAW-250). ↩
64. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Employment Situation, July 2021, USDL-21-1445 (Aug. 6, 2021) (reporting July's 5.2 million as "down from 6.2 million in the previous month") (Ex. LAW-224). ↩
65. KFF, State Social Distancing Actions, July 2, 2021 file, summary row and per-State rows (Ex. LAW-246). ↩
66. KFF, State Social Distancing Actions, July 2, 2021 and Sept. 21, 2021 files (Ex. LAW-246; Ex. LAW-247). ↩
67. Ballotpedia (Ex. LAW-237; Ex. LAW-251; Ex. LAW-252). ↩
68. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Employment Situation, July 2021 (Aug. 6, 2021) (Ex. LAW-224); The Employment Situation, September 2021, USDL-21-1785 (Oct. 8, 2021) (Ex. LAW-223). ↩
69. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Business Response Survey to the Coronavirus Pandemic, 2021 Results (data collected July 27-Sept. 30, 2021) (Ex. LAW-248) (figures read from the results page on Sept. 26, 2026). ↩
70. Callen, U.S. Census Bureau (Aug. 9, 2021) (Ex. LAW-243). ↩
71. The Beige Book (July 14, 2021) (Ex. LAW-220); The Beige Book (Sept. 8, 2021) (Ex. LAW-211); Monetary Policy Report (July 9, 2021), at 15 (Ex. LAW-221); GAO-21-551, Highlights (Ex. LAW-227). ↩
72. KFF (Ex. LAW-246; Ex. LAW-247); Ballotpedia (Ex. LAW-237; Ex. LAW-251; Ex. LAW-252). ↩
73. KFF, July 2, 2021 file (Ex. LAW-246) (stay-at-home orders "Lifted (45); No Action (6)"; non-essential businesses "All Non-Essential Businesses Open (50); Some or All Open with Limits (1)"; restaurants and bars "Open (51)"; statewide face-covering requirement "No (42)"); Sept. 21, 2021 file (Ex. LAW-247) (statewide face-covering requirement "No (40)"). ↩
74. Ballotpedia, State emergency health orders during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, 2021-2023 (dates from the page's narrative sentences and their footnoted official releases) (Ex. LAW-236). ↩
75. American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, Pub. L. 117-2, § 9651, 135 Stat. 4, 176 (Mar. 11, 2021) (Ex. LAW-003); the clause first enacted at CARES Act § 2301(c)(2)(A)(ii)(I), Pub. L. 116-136, 134 Stat. 281, 348 (Mar. 27, 2020) (Ex. LAW-001), reappears word for word at I.R.C. § 3134(c)(2)(A)(ii)(I), 135 Stat. at 177; KFF, Apr. 5, 2021 file (Ex. LAW-233). ↩
76. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Pub. L. 117-58, § 80604, 135 Stat. 429, 1341 (Nov. 15, 2021) (Ex. LAW-004) (amending I.R.C. § 3134(n) to wages paid before "October 1, 2021 (or, in the case of wages paid by an eligible employer which is a recovery startup business, January 1, 2022)"). ↩
77. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Employment Situation, April 2020 (Ex. LAW-206) (14.7 percent); Cong. Research Serv., R46554, at 2 (Ex. LAW-214) (14.8 percent, as revised); Transp. Sec. Admin., 2020 TSA checkpoint travel numbers (Ex. LAW-225). ↩
78. Letter 105C form language on the suspension prong, as issued since 2024; see Opening Br. at 11-12, Stenson Tamaddon, LLC v. IRS, No. 25-4217 (9th Cir. Sept. 17, 2025) (record examples of letters and Forms 886-A deciding claims on the Notice, 2-ER-102, 3-ER-396). ↩
79. Transcript of the preliminary-injunction hearing of July 16, 2024 ("Tr."), Stenson Tamaddon, LLC v. IRS, No. 2:24-cv-01123-SPL (D. Ariz.), Tr. 16:9-10; 51:1-7 (statements of counsel for the United States). ↩
80. Fed. R. Evid. 201(b), (c)(2) (Ex. LAW-024). ↩
81. Doc. 44 at 12 (the United States describing the Notice's list of qualifying orders, quoting Notice 2021-20, 2021-11 I.R.B. 922, Q&A-10); Br. for Appellees at 4-5, Stenson Tamaddon, LLC v. IRS, No. 25-4217 (9th Cir. Jan. 30, 2026). ↩