10 Fastest Reopening States vs 10 Slowest Reopening States

North Dakota, Washington DC, and New Hampshire are the three fastest-reopening states. Oregon, Oklahoma, and Arkansas are the three slowest.

Apple is reopening and Tesla is reopening.

And, of course, Georgia started reopening near the end of April.

There’s a major push to reopen for business in the United States right now. 39 million people are newly unemployed. That’s causing economic devastation alongside the health and life-threatening risks of COVID-19, which has now infected nearly 1.6 million Americans and killed almost 95,000.

These 10 states are re-opening the quickest, according to data from the Foursquare Recovery Index, which tracks foot traffic in businesses like stores, salons, and restaurants:

1. North Dakota: up 17%
2. Washington DC: up 16.2%
3. New Hampshire: up 14.6%
4. Maine: up 14.5%
5. South Dakota: up 14.4%
6. Arizona: up 14.2%
7. Maryland: up 14.1%
8. Wyoming: up 13.7%
9. Vermont: up 13.7%
10. Rhode Island: up 13.6%

The ten states that are reopening the slowest, by the same measure:

1. Arkansas: up 2.7%
2. Oklahoma: up 5.3%
3. Oregon: up 5.7%
4. Mississippi: up 5.8%
5. Washington: up 6.2%
6. Missouri: up 6.3%
7. Hawaii: up 6.5%
8. Louisiana: up 6.8%
9. Texas: up 7.2%
10. Illinois: up 7.3%

According to Foursquare, the Recovery Index is powered by foot traffic data from millions of consumers who are reporting their location anonymously. All data, the company says, is normalized against the U.S. Census data to remove any age, gender and geographical bias.

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It’s also important to note that this is data which compares week-over-week change. If a certain state started reopening earlier, its growth rate now could be lower, but it could still have a higher overall level of travel and retail activity. In fact, that’s what we see when we compare current data to a pre-COVID-19 baseline, says Foursquare.

Here are the top 10 states by travel and commercial activity compared to pre-COVID-19 levels:

1. South Dakota: up 18.2%
2. North Dakota: up 15.8%
3. Alaska: up 15.5%
4. Idaho: up 15.2%
5. Montana: up 14.4%
6. Wyoming: up 13.7%
7. West Virginia: up 11.9%
8. South Carolina: up 11.1%
9. Tennessee: up 9.9%
10. Iowa: up 9.5%

And here are the bottom 10 states compared to pre-COVID-19 baselines. These states may still be still sheltering in place, under lockdown, or just coming out of those periods, so overall travel and commercial activity is down.

1. Washington, DC: down 36%
2. Nevada: down 33.5%
3. Hawaii: down 28.9%
4. Florida: down 17.9%
5. Vermont: down 17.2%
6. California: down 12.2%
7. Louisiana: down 9.5%
8. Arizona: down 7%
9. Massachusetts: down 6.2%

But, as you can see by comparing with the fastest-opening list, some — like Washington DC — are reopening quickly. Locations like this likely had a lower bottom — a more comprehensive shutdown — and therefore can be reopening quickly now but still be well below historical baseline data.

It’s worth noting that while there’s a major rush to reopen, the U.S. is not yet in the clear. It’s possible that the infection curve has been flattened, but it’s entirely possible that it will start rising again as people begin to mix and meet as per usual.

And it’s also worth noting that all this commercial activity doesn’t come for free.

It comes at the cost of blue-collar workers, along with retail and service workers, putting their lives on the line so others can shop or get a haircut.

White collar workers, by contrast, are largely still staying at home and working remotely. Which, of course, is the safest option.