State and territorial executive orders, administrative orders, resolutions, proclamations, and other official publicly available government communications are collected from government websites and cataloged and coded using Microsoft Excel by one or more coders with one or more additional coders conducting quality assurance.

Data were collected to determine when individuals in states and territories were subject to executive orders, administrative orders, resolutions, proclamations, and other official publicly available government communications related to COVID-19 banning gatherings of various sizes either (1) generally, or specified that the gathering limit applied only when social distancing was not possible, or (2) even if participants practiced social distancing.

These data are derived from on the publicly available state and territorial executive orders, administrative orders, resolutions, and proclamations (“orders”) for COVID-19 that expressly ban gatherings found by the CDC, COVID-19 Community Intervention and Critical Populations Task Force, Monitoring and Evaluation Team & CDC, Center for State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Support, Public Health Law Program from March 11, 2020 through August 15, 2021. These data will be updated as new orders are collected. Any orders not available through publicly accessible websites are not included in these data. Only official copies of the documents or, where official copies were unavailable, official press releases from government websites describing requirements were coded, as well as official government communications such as announcements that counties have progressed through new phases of reopening pursuant to an executive order, directive, or other executive branch action, and posted to government websites; news media reports on restrictions were excluded. Recommendations and guidance documents not included or adopted by reference in an order are not included in these data. These data do not include mandatory business closures, curfews, or requirements/recommendations for people to stay in their homes. Due to limitations of the National Environmental Public Health Tracking Network Data Explorer, these data do not include tribes or cities, nor was a distinction made between county orders that applied county-wide versus those that were limited to unincorporated areas of the county. Effective and expiration dates were coded using only the date provided; no distinction was made based on the specific time of the day the order became effective or expired. These data do not necessarily represent an official position of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.