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The trajectory of Covid-19 and the law: a year-end thread in nine parts (1/9)
2/9 Early in the pandemic, the public feared shutdown orders as a kind of "martial law." These fears were overblown: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-17/coronavirus-in-california-are-shelter-in-place-orders-legal?sref=8SU5LPWa
3/9 Nonetheless, red and blue states did take wildly divergent approaches to limiting the spread of Covid-19, right from the start. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-04/texas-versus-california-a-story-of-dueling-coronavirus-rules?sref=8SU5LPWa
4/9 Swing states like Wisconsin saw heated debates over whether stay-at-home orders amounted to "tyranny" https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-14/wisconsin-lockdown-ruling-shows-right-wing-s-paranoia?sref=8SU5LPWa
5/9 By the fall, judges began to look more skeptically at Covid lockdown orders https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-09-16/trump-appointed-judge-rules-covid-19-lockdown-unconstitutional?sref=8SU5LPWa
6/9 In particular, the Supreme Court made it clear that houses of worship can't be treated worse than bars, gyms or restaurants https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-12-03/churches-synagogues-and-mosques-shouldn-t-close-during-covid-19?sref=8SU5LPWa
7/9 All this time, President Trump did very little to provide any coherent national guidance https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-30/trump-s-coronavirus-orders-are-just-suggestions?sref=8SU5LPWa
8/9 At least when the Trump administration failed to suggest any kind of coherent Covid strategy, states were free to step up https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-19/coronavirus-pandemic-shows-challenges-of-u-s-federalism?sref=8SU5LPWa
9/9 But in the long run, we might be better served if the executive branch had more pandemic-fighting powers https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-04-15/the-next-president-needs-more-pandemic-fighting-powers?sref=8SU5LPWa
