# Coronavirus Crisis

**Erin Burnett OutFront · CNN · May 18, 2020**

Erin Burnett interviewed Aaron Yelowitz about research on the effects of four social-distancing policies on the growth of confirmed COVID-19 cases.

## Participants

- **Erin Burnett:** CNN host
- **Aaron Yelowitz:** Professor of Economics, University of Kentucky

## Related research

[Read “Strong Social Distancing Measures in the United States Reduced the COVID-19 Growth Rate.”](/publications/2020-courtemanche-strong-social-distancing-measures-in-the-united-states-ufbsql3s/)

[View the CNN program transcript.](https://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/2005/18/ebo.01.html)

## Generated spoken-word transcript

> **Transcript note:** This transcript was generated from the recording and may be imperfect. The recording is the authoritative source.

**00:00:00 — Erin Burnett:** OutFront now, Professor Aaron Yelowitz, one of the researchers behind that study and professor of economics at the University of Kentucky. Professor Yelowitz, it’s good to talk to you again. In your study, you looked at four different social-distancing restrictions, which were tried in different ways across the country—some more widespread than others: shelter-in-place orders, which obviously weren’t everywhere; public-school closures, which pretty much were; bans on large gatherings; and closures of restaurants and entertainment businesses. Which worked better?

**00:00:27 — Aaron Yelowitz:** We found that there were two measures that were highly effective at bending the curve. The first is the shelter-in-place measures, the ones that are fairly heavy-handed, that were imposed in most but not all states. The second one that really mattered a lot was the closure of entertainment-related businesses, which would include, for example, restricting dine-in at restaurants and closing bars and gymnasiums—those sorts of things. What we also found was that there were a couple that didn’t matter much at all in terms of bending the curve.

**00:00:59 — Erin Burnett:** All right, so I want to talk about those. In your report, you have a graphic which shows the impact closing restaurants had, which you just said was one of the most effective—sheltering in place and entertainment-related businesses like restaurants. Closing schools—we can see the other line on that chart—had very little impact. How little, and why do you think that is?

**00:01:19 — Aaron Yelowitz:** We are able to think through reasons why any of these measures would bend the curve, and the answer would be because they reduce human interactions with each other. Shelter in place, where you or I are forced to stay at home, really clamps down on how much we interact with each other. It also turns out that a great way to spread the disease is by staying in one place close to many other people, so the restrictions on restaurants also intuitively make a lot of sense.

What’s interesting is that, if you think about public-school closures, then what that may have done—especially in the absence of a shelter-in-place order—was change where people congregate without actually reducing it too much. For example, if parents take their kids to the park rather than kids interacting at school, then it’s very possible that the virus could spread just as easily. That’s part of our thinking on why that happened.

**00:02:21 — Erin Burnett:** This weekend we saw massive crowds heading out of their homes across the United States. It was good weather and people were out. Based on your research, when you see this, this isn’t sheltering in place. Presumably, people are trying to do some things—stay away from older people—and there are some things that are still happening, but there are a lot of things that are not. People are out and about; they’re going to entertainment venues. What do you see the impact being here?

**00:02:49 — Aaron Yelowitz:** Our study was able to show that these government-imposed measures, which are pretty heavy-handed and where there’s a lot of fatigue, really did matter in terms of bending the curve. Without those measures, people were taking other sensible measures, but they didn’t bend the curve enough. As you mentioned at the beginning of the segment, by the time we ended the study, which was on April 27, there were about 1 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the United States. Had the strong measures not been in place, and had other things not happened, we could have seen as many as 35 million cases. It would have exploded. With the voluntary measures that are going on, there is some fear that, unless we have, for example, extensive testing and effective contact tracing, we’re going to be back to where we were before.

**00:03:39 — Erin Burnett:** All right, which is a big warning. When you say we could have had 35 million cases versus the 1 million at the time when you did the research, I think that is something everyone can understand very tangibly. Thank you very much, Professor. I appreciate your time.

**00:03:54 — Aaron Yelowitz:** Thank you so much.