A recent study has found that the virus itself was the main reason behind the record-breaking job losses seen over the course of the pandemic, versus the lockdowns imposed by governors to control its spread, according to the Washington Post.

The study—by Indiana University economists Sumedha Gupta, Kosali Simon and Coady Wing—used cellphone location data to find that Americans began staying home in large numbers well before governors instituted lockdown measures. This, in turn, led to decreased business activity, sparking off the wave of job losses. While the lockdowns did not help, and indeed added to the situation, their contributions were much smaller than the coronavirus itself. Specifically, the researchers found that business activity dropped by 53 percent regardless of what governments did or did not do, with areas under lockdown seeing a further 7 percent drop. Business activity was further damaged in proportion to the number of COVID-19 deaths in an area, indicating that fear kept people indoors more often than government orders.

If the lockdowns had been the primary culprit, the researchers said, then the job losses would have come right when they began, compared to a little while before. The study in fact traces the job problems down to a single weekend: March 14. That was when the stock market crashed and the World Health Organization declared the virus a pandemic. People began staying indoors in massive numbers at that point; by the time governors began locking down businesses, many were already doing their best to avoid going out.

As further evidence, the researchers said we would have seen a large amount of pent-up demand being released when the lockdowns ended, but business activity didn't change that much when states opened up. There was only a slight difference, about 5 percent, compared to areas that never shut down in the first place.

Overall, the researchers believe that the lockdowns, regardless of state and regardless of the party the governor of that state belonged to, were not the major factor behind job losses that certain commentators believe it to be.

The CARES Act was enacted, in part, to respond to the major job losses seen at the start of the pandemic. The Foundation for Accounting Education is hosting New York State Tax Implications of the Federal CARES Act Webcast on Jan. 26.