President Trump may hope to have the nation “opened up and just raring to go by Easter,” as he said on Tuesday, but he has no authority to order businesses to reopen or to override the decisions of state and local governments that they should remain closed to stop the spread of COVID-19.

The president’s desire to have things up and running again by April 12 carried with it the implication that he might issue some kind of order ending the shutdown that has occurred because of the pandemic.