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Covid-19 Lockdowns and Civil Liberties

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You have recently been hired as a clerk to a Supreme Court justice. Your boss asks you to prepare a research memorandum on the various conflicts which have arisen concerning state Covid-19/public health mandates and civil liberties impacted by said mandates. Your boss, the justice, makes it clear that your memorandum is NOT a policy document; rather, it should focus on what you think the Constitution and SCOTUS precedent supports regarding these competing imperatives. Additionally,
the justice is not concerned with federal government mandates, as they are of the opinion the federal government has little to no "police" power.

Please write 3-5 pages. Also include citations from peer reviewed sources (6-10 sources)

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Solution Summary

The solution provides information, assistance and advise in tackling the task (see above) on the topic of Covid-19 lockdowns and Civil Liberties. Resources are listed for further exploration of the topic. A word version is also attached.

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Dear Student,
Hi and thank you for using Brainmass. The solution below should get you started. In this particular task, you are asking for help in writing a memorandum regarding covid/health mandates. I am supposing that you have discussed some of these in your class/course. Following the outline of research/legal memorandums loosely, I suggest this simple outline:
1. Questions/Introduction - 150 words
2. Brief Answers - 150 words
3. Facts/Elaboration - 200 words
4. Discussion/ Opinion - 300 words
5. Conclusion - 200 words
6. Resources
This outline should yield about 1,000 words which should cover what you need. Just let me know via the feedback section if you need further clarification. You can also use the listed resources to further explore the topic. I also suggest checking with your course/class materials to include ideas and resources from there into your paper. All the best with your studies.

Sincerely,
AE 105878/Xenia Jones
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Memorandum: Civil Liberties vs. Covid-19 Mandates

Introduction
In a recent paper Flood, MacDonell, Thomas and Wilson for Facets Journal (Flood, et al. 2020), the authors claim that, "The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the challenges governments face in balancing civil liberties against the exigencies of public health amid the chaos of a public health emergency. Current and emerging pandemic response strategies may engage diverse rights grounded in civil liberties, including mobility rights, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and the right to liberty and security of the person." Is the act of curtailing freedoms and imposing limitations justified? Voices and opinions have surfaced that there is absence of comprehensive evidence with regards to the benefits of the intervention. At the same time, from a public health view, the intrusive measures of lockdowns may be taken to avert the risks brought by a pandemic to larger society. There are voices that propose proportionality in terms of balancing intrusive measures as precautions and risk mitigations vs. curtailing of civil liberties. This memorandum looks at some facets of the issue for review.

Brief Answers
In a commentary by Vardi (Vardi 2020), she cautions that "historically crises have been exploited to introduce dangerous policies," and that covid-19 lockdowns have the potential to be one of those events. The state of civil liberties in have deteriorated around the world in almost every nation during the covid-19 lockdowns (Hodal 2020) where voices to the contrary find repression in terms of free speech, peaceful assembly and freedom of association. These curtailing comes as part of the intervention when lockdowns, imposed by government mandates to fight the spread of the virus, legally bound people in their homes, with movement outside, including purchase of groceries, meeting friends, doing business, were heavily controlled, in accordance with what medical guidance given in relation to have the virus was spread. When covid-19 first spread, the speed at which it became community-transmuted took governments and medical institutions by surprise, finding them unprepared. Covid-19 novel coronavirus, according to UCI (UCI Health 2020) is not the most deadly (at least in comparison say, with Ebola which kills up to 50% of its infectees, or its sister MERS and SARS coronaviruses, which kills about 10% up to 40% of their infectees. What makes covid-19 dangerous is that it is 10% more deadly than seasonal flu (UCI Health 2020), spreads fast, and at the time of its emergence, a vaccine/cure was absent and no one appears immune as it has not before been seen on humans. Spread through coughs, sneezes, huffing and puffing and loud talking (where saliva is spread) as the virus rests in the upper airway of the human body, ...

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  • MPhil/PhD (IP), Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
  • MA, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
  • Certificate, Geva Ulpan (via Universita Tel Aviv)
  • BA, University of the Philippines
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