Bar owner Petros J Markantonis changes the marquee outside his bar to “Closed Again” at the West Alabama Ice House in Houston.

Mark Felix/AFP /AFP via Getty Images

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Mark Felix/AFP /AFP via Getty Images

Bar owner Petros J Markantonis changes the marquee outside his bar to “Closed Again” at the West Alabama Ice House in Houston.

Mark Felix/AFP /AFP via Getty Images

Texas Governor Greg Abbott imposed new limits on bars and restaurants Friday, one day after declaring he didn’t want to move backwards and shut down businesses.

But many people aren’t waiting. Faced with a growing number of coronavirus cases across the south and west, they’re making their own choices about spending, and many have already locked down their wallets.

“The virus is the boss,” says University of Chicago economist Austan Goolsbee. “This is not a thing to be decided by governors or mayors or anybody. People have to feel comfortable to go out. And if they don’t, they’re going to stay home.”

Goolsbee found that wherever the coronavirus death toll increased, customers dialed back their shopping and stayed home, even if local governments didn’t issue stay-at-home orders.

Just ask Houston bartender Blair Ault, who has been staying home, except when she has to work, as hospitals in her city struggle to deal with a surge in coronavirus patients.

“As a bartender I do frequent bars. And I have completely cut that out,” Ault says. “And I know a lot of other people who are — I want to say sensible — are making that choice as well.”

Economists can now monitor those choices in minute detail by studying credit card data, online reservations and also mobile phone movements. Goolsbee, for instance, used real time data to track foot traffic at more than 2 million businesses around the country.

“You have a pulse of the situation, pretty much in real time,” says Antonio Tomarchio, CEO of Cuebiq. His company uses cell phone location data to track consumers’ behavior.

Online restaurant reservations, for example, shows Houston restaurant visits have fallen sharply again in recent days, after climbing halfway back to normal in early June.

“If we start getting another big cluster of cases that turn into a rise in deaths, we could be in for another significant economic hit,” Goolsbee says.

A test will come in places like New York and Massachusetts, which were pummeled early in the pandemic but where caseloads have since dropped. New York City just this week began to allow limited, outdoor restaurant dining. Observers will watch closely to see if that slower, more cautious re-opening avoids the kind of spike in infections that has plagued sunbelt cities.

Businesses are also making their own choices. Some have decided to shut down again. Apple has temporarily closed dozens of stores in Texas, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

Bartender Ault had told NPR she was nervous about working in Houston Friday night and said she hoped people would stay away, even though that would mean reduced tips.

In the end, Gov. Abbott made the choice, ordering bars to close at noon.