Why Didn't COVID-19 Kill the Constitution?

WE CAN THANK JUDGES WHO WERE PREPARED TO ENFORCE CONSTITUTIONAL LIMITS ON PUBLIC HEALTH POWERS.

- JACOB SULLUM

THE DAY AFTER the nation’s first COVID-19 lockdown took effect in the San Francisco Bay Area, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would never impose similar restrictions. Telling residents they may not leave their homes except for “essential” purposes “scares people,” the Democratic governor told The New York Times on March 18, 2020, and “the fear, the panic, is a bigger problem than the virus.” Cuomo unequivocally ruled out a stay-at-home order in New York. “That is not going to happen,” he said.

Two days later, after California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a fellow Democrat, announced a statewide lockdown, Cuomo changed his mind. “We’re all in quarantine now,” he declared on March 20 while issuing an order “mandating that 100% of the workforce must stay home, excluding essential services.”

Cuomo’s sudden turnaround was not hard to understand given the looming threat from the COVID-19 pandemic, which would ultimately kill more than 50,000 New Yorkers. Once Newsom took the step that Cuomo had ruled out, Cuomo did not want to seem reckless by failing to follow suit. “This is the most drastic action we can take,” he told reporters at a press conference in Albany. “This is not life as usual. Accept it. Realize it and deal with it.”