Orders prohibiting most gatherings for non-essential purposes (with essential defined by the entity issuing the ruling), shuttering non-essential businesses, etc., very similar to today's shelter-in-place orders were fairly common in the 1918-1919 flu epidemic. They aren't at all unprecedented in the US.
Unprecedented doesn't mean bad..it just means new. The last truly national pandemic we had predated the model T and approximately aligned with the first commercial airboat flight.
Not only is such action not unprecedented, but mislabeling it unprecedented repeatedly is a form of propaganda.
OTOH, states (unlike the federal government) have general police powers, so their legislation is constitutional absent an express constitutional prohibition, whereas the feds need specific constitutional authority.
Reading the history about the second and third wave into 1919 as a result of reopening and then re-closing business also makes for interesting and educative reading, recommended.
What’s new here is that people are being ordered to stay at home. But putting an imposition on a whole group of people without focusing on infected individuals is neither new nor unconstitutional.
Most that I'm thinking of didn't actually force you into your home, business was restricted, large gatherings... but it wasn't a situation where you weren't allowed to go outside. Maybe some did but I can't think of any.
> All individuals present within the State of Wisconsin are ordered to stay at home or at their place of residence, with exceptions outlined below.
https://evers.wi.gov/Documents/COVID19/EMO12-SaferAtHome.pdf
I also want to know where are all the other people asking the same question?
Where are they?
I don't think they are dead, or threatened. Did they just agree to stay quiet?
