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Comment by bgorman | Hacker News Reader

Where does the authority come from to ban public events, forcibly quarantine individuals against their consent come from? I.e. if this went to the supreme court, would this be upheld? This is private property. From what I can tell there is little evidence that there is a large health risk to most of the population.

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I'm not lawyer, but if I recall correctly, that power derives from this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_power_%28United_States_...

Less clear to me if that applies to forcible quarantine, but seems like it would definitely apply to public events.

On the point of large health risk, it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that every Warriors game is a perfect vector for community spread. I'm sure the health care professionals in the Bay Area would applaud this move.

It's a Public Health Order supported by California state law.

> UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF CALIFORNIA HEALTH AND SAFETY CODE SECTIONS 101040, 101085, AND 120175, THE HEALTH OFFICER OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO

Also it's hard to understate how devastating this virus can be if it spreads quickly. e.g. for people > 80 years old the mortality rate is 15%

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-death-age-older-...

> From what I can tell there is little evidence that there is a large health risk to most of the population.

These measures will absolutely prevent a significant number of people from dying. Does it matter if that population is not 'most' people?

Smoking cigarettes is legal in California, as is splitting lanes on a motorcycle. There is risk inherent in living life.

Significant compared to what? By the metrics this is no different than flu season with lots of hysteria lumped on.

Just FYI - the best case scenario is a CFR of 10x the flu. All those stupid "Over 20,000 people die from the flu every year, so don't worry" posts are going to look really bad if 200,000 people die.

I'm looking forward to discovering the answer. What if I hold a church service with 500 attendees. Do the police come and forcibly remove people from a private gathering? That's a clear violation of several Constitutional rights, of course.

Is this more of a "wink wink, nudge nudge" situation where corporations need government to "shut it all down" because the corporations don't want to lose face by appearing paranoid?

Even constitutional rights have limits. Free speech is limited by laws around slander/libel, and you can't incite to immediate violence. Freedom of religion doesn't mean you get an 'out' for laws that contradict your teachings (usually).

Thankfully most people aren't sociopaths so this is unlikely to get tested in the courts.

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