Stay-at-home order

A stay-at-home order is a proclamation or executive order made by a government official or body limiting the movement of people outside their homes. The measure is usually taken for safety reasons, such as when an area is experiencing an outbreak of an infectious disease, and steps are taken to limit the spread. Stay-at-home orders affect individuals and businesses, which may be forced to remain closed for the duration of the order. Such orders are usually limited in duration. However, the entity that has the authority to issue such orders usually has the power to extend them if necessary.

In the United States, US Constitutional law gives police power to the states. This power is invoked when stay-at-home orders are issued. State governors are granted the legal authority to make such proclamations by state legislatures, usually through a law pertaining to emergency powers. According to legal scholars, federal authorities do not have the power to issue such orders, although the federal government does have the power to isolate or quarantine individuals infected with or exposed to certain communicable diseases, such as plague and cholera, when they enter the United States or travel between states.

Background

Throughout history, humans have been beset by disease. Many centuries saw pandemics of bubonic plague, cholera, and other infectious diseases. Local authorities resorted to quarantine, or keeping potentially ill people—those who are suspected of having been exposed to disease—separate from others for a time to see if they develop the illness. This practice became common long before people understood how diseases were transmitted. For example, during the fourteenth century, the Black Death (1347-1351), a pandemic caused by bubonic plague, inspired fear and killed twenty million people in Europe. In the trade port of Venice, Italy, officials began forcing ships suspected of carrying plague to stay off the coast for forty days. This waiting period became known as quarantinario, from the Italian word for forty.

Isolation is another tactic employed to slow or eliminate the spread of disease. This involves separating people who have a contagious disease from those who are not sick. Among the most famous people kept in isolation was Mary Mallon, nicknamed Typhoid Mary. Mallon, and Irish immigrant and cook, was a contagious carrier of the bacteria responsible for typhoid fever, despite having immunity to the disease. In 1907, while working in different homes around New York City, Mallon unknowingly infected others, and triggered a large-scale typhoid outbreak. She was eventually found to be the source of the city’s typhoid outbreak- a "super-spreader"- and was sent to North Brother Island for a three-year period of isolation. While she promised not to work as a cook again, she soon returned to that occupation. After this, she was returned to isolation, where she stayed for the rest of her life.

Another practice meant to slow the spread of disease was employed during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic, also known as the Spanish Flu, which killed an estimated 17-50 million people worldwide. In the United States, some communities instituted shut-downs of schools, theaters, houses of worship, and other venues where large numbers of people typically gathered, in addition to isolating the sick and quarantining those exposed to the flu. Some communities went further by issuing stay-at-home orders, which limited who could leave their homes and for what purposes. For example, in San Francisco, California, which had seen a rapid uptick in flu cases during October 1918, the mayor met with health officials and members of the business community to discuss options. Despite the reluctance of some of those consulted, the city closed all public amusements. It also encouraged residents to wear face coverings to prevent the spread of flu. San Francisco later became the first American city to require people to wear masks through a mayoral order. Despite these efforts, the city saw a large number of flu cases because it had initially delayed taking action and lifted restrictions early. The city saw forty-five thousand cases, included three thousand fatalities.

Overview

The majority of laws are passed by the legislature and signed by the top government official—in states’ cases, the governor. Stay-at-home orders are instead signed by the state governor without having been approved by the legislature. These orders may take varying forms. During the 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic, as cases of the novel coronavirus began to appear in the United States, some governors issued executive orders. Louisiana was among the states issuing proclamations, while Utah issued a directive. Idaho called its stay-at-home order simply an order.

Public health officials faced with the onset of a new pandemic looked to the lessons learned more than a century earlier. Some of the earliest actions took place at the federal level, with travel restrictions and quarantine of people who were traveling from known COVID-19 hot spots, such as China and Italy.

As it became clear that community spread of the virus was occurring in several states, governors began taking action. The first West Coast states to see community spread were California and Washington; on the East Coast, New York City quickly emerged as the biggest hot spot. Both California and New York were among the first states to issue stay-at-home orders. Such orders generally closed schools and non-essential businesses. Those businesses whose employees could work from home were permitted to continue. Essential businesses were those declared life-sustaining, such as medical facilities, grocery stores, pharmacies, and businesses that sold materials necessary to life functions, such as home repair supplies and tools. Restaurants were to close except for takeout or delivery. Under stay-at-home orders, non-essential workers were to remain home except for necessary trips, such as to buy groceries or get medicine. Essential workers included healthcare providers, firefighters, police, utility service crews, and those who worked in grocery stores and pharmacies.

People were also permitted to leave their homes for exercise, as long as they practiced social distancing, also called physical distance. This meant staying at least six feet from other people. However, many communities closed playgrounds to prevent children from spreading the virus on swings and other equipment.

Some counties in California initially issued shelter-in-place orders, which are similar to stay-at-home orders. On March 19, Governor Gavin Newsom put the whole state under a stay-at-home order. Governor Andrew Cuomo placed New York under a stay-at-home order that went into effect on March 22. He declined to call it a shelter-in-place order because that term is often used in active-shooter situations and felt that the wording was inappropriate for extended isolation.

Many countries issued stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic. For example, Italy first issued the orders in the hard-hit northern region before extending the limits to the rest of the country. India instituted extremely rigid rules in early March, closing almost all businesses, shutting down transportation, and ordering people to remain indoors. Officials acknowledged the impossibility of social distancing in densely populated cities, where in many cases people slept eight to a room. Despite these efforts, the rate of infections slowed but continued to rise through May, and many restrictions were eased as the country suffered economically.

Bibliography

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Jacobson, Louis. “Are Stay-at-Home Orders ‘Laws,’ as Jay Inslee Said?” PolitiFact, 21 Apr. 2020, www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/21/jay-inslee/are-stay-home-orders-laws-jay-inslee-said/. Accessed 13 Dec. 2024.

"Legal Authorities for Isolation and Quarantine." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 15 May 2024, www.cdc.gov/port-health/legal-authorities/isolation-quarantine.html. Accessed 13 Dec. 2024.

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Stimson, Charles, and David B. Rivkin Jr. “A Constitutional Guide to Emergency Powers.” Heritage Foundation, 21 Mar. 2020, www.heritage.org/the-constitution/commentary/constitutional-guide-emergency-powers. Accessed 13 Dec. 2024.

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