Day 103: Safer in Court

It's not just our economy that was unprepared for quarantining 330 million well people instead of 1.4 million sick people; our court system is also unaccustomed to the sudden closure of churches and other non-traditional responses to The Disease Which Shall Not Be Compared To The Flu. The economy is quick to fold under assault, while the court system lies low and considers its arguments. But once it rouses itself, hold on to your quarantine-the-well orders, folks, because it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Today, with the legislature egging it on, the state supreme court of Wisconsin struck down the governor's attempted extension of a "Safer at Home" order. It fell partly on technicalities of how and by whom it was done, but mostly on the law in Wisconsin not permitting the wholesale closure of the state (at least not in the chapters cited as a basis for doing so). The whole thing is 161 pages long if you want to take a look for yourself.

In other legal fights, the governor of Texas is at odds with San Antonio and other big cities over reopening. The state's main point of contention is (allegedly) unlawful local restrictions and/or fines exceeding the state's existing coronavirus regulations.

On the free exercise front (no, not jogging without a mask—the First Amendment), a US District Court has struck down the governor of Kentucky's attempt to ban in-person church services. Though it's the same state, it is not the same case as the sixth circuit court case unbanning drive-in church services.

Elon Musk says Tesla is suing Alameda County for, basically, not doing the corona the way Trump does it. There's also some incomprehensible lawsuit going on in Nevada over who can prescribe (hydroxy)chloroquine and where; at least one county has already tapped out.

Massachusetts cases are up about 1.5% today. Judging from the governor's daily presser, we little people don't get to find out which businesses are allowed to open back up on Monday until...Monday. Even if the owners somehow get more warning than the rest of us, that hardly sounds conducive to resuming business.

In any event, it's Cities and Towns day today, and here's a new map for you. Things are so plateaued that I had to change the percentile scale to make the tiny bit of variety more visible. The hottest new hotspot is Hamden down at the bottom of Hamden County, the only spot to go up more than 100% in the past week. But it was only 20 new cases; Connecticut probably wasn't wearing a mask one day and coughed on them.

P.S. Some adjustments for mobile have been made to the map (in place).