Coronavirus pandemic

[Max Rockatansky]

Oregon's stay at home order was tossed out in a court appeal.  Apparently the governor only issue an emergency declaration without legislative approval for one month:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-tosses-coronavirus-restrictions-oregon-201711786.html

[mgk920]

Oregon's stay at home order was tossed out in a court appeal.  Apparently the governor only issue an emergency declaration without legislative approval for one month:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-tosses-coronavirus-restrictions-oregon-201711786.html

Last Week, Wisconsin's Supreme Court ruled that the governor cannot unilaterally renew an emergency declaration without legislative assent.  Here the maximum is two months.

Mike

[Max Rockatansky]

Oregon's stay at home order was tossed out in a court appeal.  Apparently the governor only issue an emergency declaration without legislative approval for one month:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-tosses-coronavirus-restrictions-oregon-201711786.html

Last Week, Wisconsin's Supreme Court ruled that the governor cannot unilaterally renew an emergency declaration without legislative assent.  Here the maximum is two months.

Mike

Yes, pretty much the exact same thing too.  I find it kind of strange that a lot of these Governor's offices are either naive to their own emergency laws or surprised this is what happens when they ignore the legislative process.  I know a lot of people were pissed about what happened in Wisconsin but shouldn't the Governor's office been aware that an extension would have required state legislature approval?

[Duke87]

Yes, pretty much the exact same thing too.  I find it kind of strange that a lot of these Governor's offices are either naive to their own emergency laws or surprised this is what happens when they ignore the legislative process.  I know a lot of people were pissed about what happened in Wisconsin but shouldn't the Governor's office been aware that an extension would have required state legislature approval?

At least in Wisconsin's case, the legislature was unlikely to approve. So the governor's choices realistically were to say "oh well I'm not going to be able to impose any statewide restrictions after this point" and then roll over about it, or play political hardball and put up a fight to try to keep them in place as long as possible. He chose the latter.


As for Oregon, the state supreme court still needs to look at it so we don't yet know how this will ultimately play out. That said the enabling statute for the governor to declare a public health emergency doesn't necessarily make it clear cut which way this will ultimately go. The passage in question is this:

A proclamation of a state of public health emergency expires when terminated by a declaration of the Governor or no more than 14 days after the date the public health emergency is proclaimed unless the Governor expressly extends the proclamation for an additional 14-day period.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are arguing that this only allows for a single 14-day extension, thus meaning the public health emergency cannot be extended past 28 days without legislative action. The defense, meanwhile, will argue that it doesn't explicitly say an extension can only happen once.

I don't know if there is any prior case law from Oregon on this matter but I am guessing there is not.

Regardless, if I were the governor right now I'd be asking the legislature to convene and explicitly pass something allowing for the emergency to be extended, and thus render the court case moot. Oregon's legislature, unlike Wisconsin's, would likely approve such a request.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

Minnesota moving into Phase 1 of reopening was one of those things no one seems real happy about, since the governor's supporters feel he caved to the pressure from the right, while the right is obviously not satisfied with anything less than full and immediate reopens. I think courts getting involved in other states probably also provided pressure for something to be done.

[Max Rockatansky]

Yes, pretty much the exact same thing too.  I find it kind of strange that a lot of these Governor's offices are either naive to their own emergency laws or surprised this is what happens when they ignore the legislative process.  I know a lot of people were pissed about what happened in Wisconsin but shouldn't the Governor's office been aware that an extension would have required state legislature approval?

At least in Wisconsin's case, the legislature was unlikely to approve. So the governor's choices realistically were to say "oh well I'm not going to be able to impose any statewide restrictions after this point" and then roll over about it, or play political hardball and put up a fight to try to keep them in place as long as possible. He chose the latter.


As for Oregon, the state supreme court still needs to look at it so we don't yet know how this will ultimately play out. That said the enabling statute for the governor to declare a public health emergency doesn't necessarily make it clear cut which way this will ultimately go. The passage in question is this:

A proclamation of a state of public health emergency expires when terminated by a declaration of the Governor or no more than 14 days after the date the public health emergency is proclaimed unless the Governor expressly extends the proclamation for an additional 14-day period.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are arguing that this only allows for a single 14-day extension, thus meaning the public health emergency cannot be extended past 28 days without legislative action. The defense, meanwhile, will argue that it doesn't explicitly say an extension can only happen once.

I don't know if there is any prior case law from Oregon on this matter but I am guessing there is not.

Regardless, if I were the governor right now I'd be asking the legislature to convene and explicitly pass something allowing for the emergency to be extended, and thus render the court case moot. Oregon's legislature, unlike Wisconsin's, would likely approve such a request.

I'm actually really curious to see how things play out in Oregon.  Given the close proximity to where I live I had a trip planned through the state en route to Boise.  There isn't much point in executing those plans unless some of the restrictions here and Oregon start to loosen up.  Seeing challenges or disputes about legislative process is always something I find fascinating.  Scanning the news it looks like the Oregon Supreme Court reinstated they order and stated the matter needed to be heard by at their level:

https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-oregon-supreme-court-reinstates-restrictions-20200519-4x4yj6dkwfemtec5thuvq64qhy-story.html

[TheGrassGuy]

The court told Oregon to keep their order for now.

[hotdogPi]

Oregon is actually doing really well (and has been the entire time). However, I said the same about Minnesota a few weeks ago, and look what happened...

[bandit957]

Oregon is actually doing really well (and has been the entire time). However, I said the same about Minnesota a few weeks ago, and look what happened...

Minnesota had an outbreak at a meatpacker.

[Roadgeekteen]

Oregon is actually doing really well (and has been the entire time). However, I said the same about Minnesota a few weeks ago, and look what happened...

Minnesota had an outbreak at a meatpacker.

Meatpacking plants have seemed to be hotspots for this.

[roadman65]

How come law enforcement officers are mask less?  They deal with people when they pull over or better yet what about a person they have to transport in their back seat?

[NWI_Irish96]

How come law enforcement officers are mask less?  They deal with people when they pull over or better yet what about a person they have to transport in their back seat?

Too many lawyers who will use the mask as a claim that the officer gave unclear instructions or asked unclear questions.

[J N Winkler]

Yes, pretty much the exact same thing too.  I find it kind of strange that a lot of these Governor's offices are either naive to their own emergency laws or surprised this is what happens when they ignore the legislative process.  I know a lot of people were pissed about what happened in Wisconsin but shouldn't the Governor's office been aware that an extension would have required state legislature approval?

As we discovered in Kansas when we had a fight over our governor's attempt to extend the ten-person cap on gatherings to church services, state emergency-management statutes can raise complex constitutional questions not just in terms of fundamental freedoms but also separation of powers.  When the gathering cap first went to court, the Kansas Supreme Court ignored the whole First Amendment dimension in favor of ruling that since the action the legislature relied on in trying to overturn the order, a joint resolution, was not a bill passed by both houses and presented to the governor for signature, it could not be used as a basis for challenging an order validly adopted under the Kansas Emergency Management Act.  It was not until the churches went to federal court that a compromise was worked out whereby services could have more than ten persons but strict social distancing requirements applied.

So it isn't a simple question of ignorance of the black-letter law.  In many (perhaps most) states there are murky aspects for which there is no clear precedent as to what is constitutional, and especially when there is divided control (as in Kansas where Republicans control both houses of the legislature but the governor is a Democrat), that can give rise to political brinkmanship.

[tradephoric]

Oregon is actually doing really well (and has been the entire time). However, I said the same about Minnesota a few weeks ago, and look what happened...

There are currently 13 states with 5 deaths per 100k or fewer.  Some of these states have seen a decline to near zero new cases while other states are seeing a slow and steady rise in new cases even while they were in the midst of lock-downs (Oregon included):



It's interesting to compare the curves of Louisiana and Minnesota.  Louisiana was hit hard early in the pandemic (most of their cases being contracted even before the lock downs took effect).  OTOH, Minnesota had relatively few cases through March and early April but have recently seen exponential growth in new cases (even during the lock downs).  But keep in mind Minnesota still has 20k fewer COVID cases than Louisiana despite the fact that Minnesota has 1 million more people.  That spike in Minnesota may get much worse once things reopen (as the state still doesn't have a high level of herd immunity when compared to Louisiana).   

[tradephoric]

Here is a tale of 4 states.  They were all at one point following the 3 day doubling curve.  What state are you in?  I think the majority of states would fall in the "wait and see" category.

Containment state (Vermont):  Fell off the curve and was able to contain the virus. 

Wait and see state (Missouri):  Fell off the curve and new cases have plateaued for weeks. 

Losing the battle state (Minnesota): Fell off the curve and cases plateaued only to see a big spike in new cases.

Worst is over state (Louisiana): Got hit hard from the beginning of the outbreak but now are seeing cases drop precipitously.


https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/?region=US&doublingtime=3&location=Louisiana&location=Minnesota&location=Missouri&location=Vermont

[kphoger]

Kansas cases seem to be bouncing up and down now.  I see a similarity between this state's trend and that of Arkansas.

[wxfree]

I believe the right thing was done issuing the emergency orders, and in most places it probably looks like an overreaction only because it was done, because if it hadn't been there probably would have been a lot more disasters.  However, I agree with the legislatures about the limits of emergencies.  When something severe happens, immediate action is needed.  Legislatures are not designed for immediate action, they're intended to be deliberative so that they (hopefully) make good decisions for the longer term.  Only executives can make and implement quick decisions to respond to emergency situations.

The way I see it, the emergency isn't strictly defined by how bad a situation is, but also by how new it is.  Right now, ending a state of emergency and going back to normal governing doesn't mean that the bad situation is over, but it means that the legislative body has had time to convene, gather information, and deliberate an appropriate course of action.  What had been an emergency isn't short-term, it's the new normal.  Normal is now bad, but it's an ongoing situation to which government must adapt.  In states like Texas, where the legislature isn't allowed to convene except for defined sessions, unless the governor calls for a special session, the governors should have called special sessions as soon as it became clear that emergency orders were needed and would likely be needed for a prolonged period.

[webny99]

Kansas cases seem to be bouncing up and down now.  I see a similarity between this state's trend and that of Arkansas.

It could be the result of irregularities and/or lags between testing and reporting.

[ftballfan]

I would place Michigan somewhere between "wait and see" and "worst is over".

32 counties in Michigan (the entire UP plus 17 counties in the northern Lower Peninsula, including my home county) can open retail and dine-in restaurants (at 50% capacity) on Friday (a week earlier than what many were expecting). I would expect some more counties (maybe even the rest of the state outside Metro Detroit) to join that group either next week or the week after.

Michigan's cases kind of bounce up and down with a slight downward trend, but they've been testing way more in the past couple of weeks (and some of the cases might be backlogged from earlier). The majority of the cases likely fall in one of these categories:
1. Exposed prior to everything shutting down
2. Close contact with other cases
3. Long term care facilities (a significant portion of the state's deaths are in LTCFs in metro Detroit and most of the rural counties with relatively high caseloads had an outbreak in an LTCF)
4. Prisons (MI includes inmate cases in the total # of cases, but reports them separately from county data)

[wxfree]

Kansas cases seem to be bouncing up and down now.  I see a similarity between this state's trend and that of Arkansas.

It could be the result of irregularities and/or lags between testing and reporting.

Generally you use running averages to smooth things out.  But this virus seems strange to me.  I'm not a statistician, so maybe there's a reason for this I'm not familiar with, but even on the national scale and global scale, large enough that you'd think the irregularities would smooth out, since not every place has the same irregularities, the daily new cases numbers follow a fairly regular wave pattern with peaks and troughs.  I would expect this would be more random, with an average daily number of X over a weeklong period, and each day staying mostly within a certain percentage of that number, but randomly either higher or lower.  In such a pattern, waves would sometimes happen by chance, but you wouldn't expect waves consistently.  It isn't a perfect wave pattern.  Sometimes it goes up, down, then up.  But it isn't nearly as random as I would expect.

On Worldometer, the global "Total Serious and Critical Cases" graph shows a very broad wave, with a quick climb to a peak on April 29 and a slow descent, but within that the numbers go up and down with seemingly no order.  That's what I would expect.  On the Johns Hopkins site, the New Jersey daily numbers show a broad wave with a lot of day-to-day chaos.  New York seems to be settling into a regular diminishing wave pattern.  Texas shows a broadly growing wave with a lot of daily randomness.  That's the pattern I would expect.  Does anyone more familiar with numbers know why such a large scale event would follow a pattern of waves?  Should it be more random?  Am I misreading the graphs and seeing more order than what exists?

[Scott5114]

Why should anyone take a graph with no y-axis seriously?

[Roadgeekteen]

Why should anyone take a graph with no y-axis seriously?

Won't tell you raw deaths, but you can still tell the curve.

[bandit957]

Generally you use running averages to smooth things out.  But this virus seems strange to me.  I'm not a statistician, so maybe there's a reason for this I'm not familiar with, but even on the national scale and global scale, large enough that you'd think the irregularities would smooth out, since not every place has the same irregularities, the daily new cases numbers follow a fairly regular wave pattern with peaks and troughs.  I would expect this would be more random, with an average daily number of X over a weeklong period, and each day staying mostly within a certain percentage of that number, but randomly either higher or lower.  In such a pattern, waves would sometimes happen by chance, but you wouldn't expect waves consistently.  It isn't a perfect wave pattern.  Sometimes it goes up, down, then up.  But it isn't nearly as random as I would expect.

On Worldometer, the global "Total Serious and Critical Cases" graph shows a very broad wave, with a quick climb to a peak on April 29 and a slow descent, but within that the numbers go up and down with seemingly no order.  That's what I would expect.  On the Johns Hopkins site, the New Jersey daily numbers show a broad wave with a lot of day-to-day chaos.  New York seems to be settling into a regular diminishing wave pattern.  Texas shows a broadly growing wave with a lot of daily randomness.  That's the pattern I would expect.  Does anyone more familiar with numbers know why such a large scale event would follow a pattern of waves?  Should it be more random?  Am I misreading the graphs and seeing more order than what exists?

It's probably best to use a 7-day rolling average. On some days of the week, fewer tests are released, and not as many counties report the number of deaths.

[bandit957]

Wow, I used to think I was more terrified of germs than everyone else who ever lived. But if the guidelines for controlling this virus wore on me in March, I can only imagine how rough it must be for everyone else.

[wxfree]

Why should anyone take a graph with no y-axis seriously?

Each one has a y-axis where the bottom is zero and the top is the high point of the line.  The purpose is to compare the shapes and directions, not the heights.  If each state had a y-axis as high as New York's, you could compare the heights, but it would make the changes in direction harder to see on the very short curves.