Fig. 1: COVID-19 cases, deaths, and national-level policies.

COVID-19 cases, deaths, and national-level policies are indicated for (A) Canada, (B) the United Kingdom, and (C) the United States. 7-day rolling averages of cases (left vertical axis, solid black line) and deaths (right vertical axis, dotted black line) per one million people are shown for the timeframe of this media study, 1 March through 15 August 2020 (Roser et al., 2020). The timeline for each country specifies national-level public-health policies and guidance, especially emergency declarations, school and non-essential business closures, travel and border restrictions, quarantines and social distancing, mask usage, and reopening phases. Implementation of enforceable policies (solid) and non-enforced guidance (dotted) is specified with vertical red lines, and corresponding reopening and relaxation of policies and guidance are specified with vertical blue lines. Detailed descriptions of national-level policies within each panel are provided in SI Table S1.