“The effectiveness of stay-at-home orders has been the subject of ongoing debate since the outbreak of the pandemic.”In the U.S., local and federal governments considered various measures to contain the spread of coronavirus. Wang obtained stay-at-home data from The New York Times, which included detailed information by county, including implementation dates and durations. The researcher compared the outcome trends of two groups: the counties that did not issue stay-at-home orders during the study period and the counties that did. “The main purpose of the stay-at-home orders was to reduce person-to-person contact by limiting the number of nonessential trips made by residents,” Wang said. Wang said the results of the study could be useful in the future to policymakers who seek to understand the effectiveness of stay-at-home orders on different populations.