‘Get on with the business of life’? Missouri lawmaker offers dangerous COVID-19 advice
State Sen. Cindy O’Laughlin, whose 18th District includes a wide swath of the northeastern corner of Missouri, is the latest lawmaker to chafe at stay-at-home orders issued in an effort to contain COVID-19.
“I see no time in the history of this country when perfectly healthy people have been basically confined to their homes or only able to do essential things as in Kansas City or St. Louis,” she wrote in a Facebook post Sunday. “Frankly I consider this unconstitutional and it needs (to be) challenged.”
O’Laughlin is free to challenge anything she wants, of course, but if she tries to block local limits on movement in the face of the coronavirus, she will fail. The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized the police power of states, cities and counties to take steps to protect public health, even at the risk of inconveniencing some people.
“A community has the right to protect itself against an epidemic of disease which threatens the safety of its members,” the court said in 1905.
Public safety measures must not be arbitrary or unreasonable, the judges said. But no one would seriously claim those standards have been ignored: loosely-enforced stay-at-home proclamations in Kansas City, St. Louis, and Columbia are eminently reasonable during a dire threat such as coronavirus.
Legalities aside, O’Laughlin’s social media pout is clearly part of a broader effort to increase pressure on policymakers to ease restrictions on gatherings and movement of Missourians during the next few weeks. “Let’s get on with the business of life,” the senator wrote.
President Donald Trump made a similar statement Tuesday, paving the way for the predictable push. “(I) would love to have the country opened up, and just raring to go, by Easter,” he said in a Fox News town hall.
Slow down, Mr. President. Your legal authority to require states or cities to reopen is not at all clear. Any federal order to lift restrictions would undoubtedly provoke immediate lawsuits across the country.
It turns out that Kansas City Health Director Rex Archer and Mayor Quinton Lucas, along with their their counterparts across Missouri, have much more power and responsibility than the feds to address the coronavirus threat. Kansas City’s health department can take “all measures necessary to avoid, suppress or mitigate disease,” for example.
But there can be no mistake: Led by President Trump, local officials will soon face enormous pressure to lift their stay-at-home orders. They must resist it.
Yes, local shutdown orders have caused pain for businesses and families. They have also, undoubtedly, saved lives. To lift those orders prematurely, under pressure from Trump or anyone else, would not only threaten health and safety, it also would waste the sacrifices already made to limit the damage inflicted by this pandemic.
And lifting restrictions too early might not help businesses anyway. Who would want to go to a Kansas City restaurant, or a concert, or a shopping mall while the risk of contracting the virus remains so high?
On Tuesday, a major statewide coalition of doctors, nurses, business executives and farmers said Missouri’s partial shutdown needs a chance to work. “Social distancing when in public and staying at home as much as possible are important tools in our efforts to limit COVID-19 spread,” the group said.
The only way to restore the economy is to arrest the progress of a dangerous, communicable virus that has already claimed six lives in Missouri, while making hundreds more sick. If social distancing, closed schools and work-at-home orders are part of the price, it will have to be paid, and Missourians should be willing to pay it.