Text size

As the coronavirus affects daily life in more and more profound ways, a new concept has entered into policy-making and political discussions: A “national lockdown” to defend against the disease.

Asked at a Tuesday press briefing about the possibility of a nationwide lockdown similar to the order that takes effect tonight in San Francisco, where residents are required to stay at home except for essential needs, President Donald Trump said, “Well you can do a national lockdown. Hopefully we’re not going to need that… It’s something we talk about, but we haven’t decided to do that.”

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, seemed to embrace the concept on the Sunday-morning talk show circuit. Asked on NBC’s Meet the Press whether he would favor a 14-day national shutdown to slow the disease’s spread, he said, “You know I would prefer as much as we possibly could. I think we should really be overly aggressive and get criticized for overreacting.”

But what exactly is a “national lockdown,” and how could it be implemented?

There’s no U.S. federal authority “to force everybody everywhere to stay home,” says Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the liberty and national security program at New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. An attempt to do so would be “challenged judicially and instantly, in my view,” says James Hodge, professor at Arizona State University’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.

A patchwork of extensive state and local emergency powers, combined with some more limited federal powers, could approximate something like a national shutdown “if every government body in this country exercised every tool in their tool kit,” Goitein says.

Such coordinated action is unlikely and perhaps not even advisable, experts say. “All the states are not going to do all the same things simultaneously,” Hodge says. And even if they did, “if you have a mandatory shutdown of everything, does the blow to the economyexacerbate the public health issues?” Goitein asks.

On Monday, President Donald Trump and the White House Coronavirus Task Force released new guidelines for slowing the virus’ spread, including working and schooling from home when possible, avoiding gatherings of more than 10 people, and avoiding discretionary travel.

The National Security Council rejected the idea of a national quarantine Sunday evening, saying in a tweet, “Text message rumors of a national #quarantine are FAKE. There is no national lockdown.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will continue to post guidance on Covid-19, the council said.

Stay up to date on coronavirus and all the latest news Sign up here for the Barron’s Updates newsletter

Asked about the possibility of restricting travel within the U.S., President Trump said at the Tuesday press briefing, “It’s possible. It’s possible. We’ll see how it goes.”

But there are limits on the federal government’s authority to restrict travel within the country, experts say. For people reasonably believed to have a communicable disease, interstate travel can be restricted, Goitein says. And there’s some federal authority to restrict certain modes of travel, as with the Federal Aviation Administration’s ability to ground flights, she says. But for healthy people who may be driving around the country, she says, there’s no clear federal authority to limit private interstate travel.

With Oklahoma’s declaration of an emergency on Sunday, all 50 states have now made emergency declarations in response to the virus, but emergency powers such as travel restrictions and quarantine can vary from state to state, according to the Network for Public Health Law.

While a mandated lockdown may raise constitutional issues, it’s relatively easy for state and local governments to create a “virtual lockdown” by closing schools and other facilities, banning large gatherings and other measures, Hodge says. It’s “not saying what you can and can’t do,” he says, but rather “where are people going to go and what are they going to do?”

“We have the broadest swath of powers available at the state level” to respond, Hodge says. Indeed, some states have already taken actions that far exceed CDC guidance. On Sunday, for example, the CDC recommended against gatherings of 50 or more people for the next eight weeks, but said the recommendation “does not apply to the day-to-day operation of organizations such as schools, institutes of higher learning, or businesses.” The same day, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker closed all K-12 schools in the state and prohibited gatherings of more than 25 people as well as food and drink consumption at bars and restaurants, while the township of Teaneck, N.J. called on residents to “voluntarily self-quarantine and isolate.”

People may be more likely to comply with such self-isolation policies than with mandatory quarantines, Goitein says.

The federal government has the power to implement quarantines to prevent communicable diseases from entering the country or from spreading between states. But state and local quarantine powers can also be quite broad, Goitein says, and quarantine decisions within U.S. borders have generally been left to the states.

Rather than imposing a national quarantine, the federal government’s role is more likely to be delivering the message that “as Americans, we all have the responsibility to protect the most vulnerable by limiting our interactions,” says Michael Coen, senior advisor for homeland security and emergency management at consulting firm IEM and former chief of staff to the administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “The American people, when given all the facts and information, will take responsibility,” he says.

Write to Eleanor Laise at eleanor.laise@dowjones.com