Imagine for a moment what would happen if the government declared, “Since every individual has the potential to commit a felony crime, we are going to incarcerate everyone.” There would be outrage, protests, and defiance. “That is unjust,” the protestors might proclaim. “You are treating innocent citizens the same as actual criminals.” Yet, in principle, this is what the lockdown did.
Before the government can put an individual in prison, it must prove that that person committed a crime. The burden of proof is on the government, and it must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. It can’t imprison individuals simply because they might commit a crime. They must actually commit a crime and the government must prove it.
The lockdown placed everyone under house arrest simply because they might spread the coronavirus. Those infected with the novel virus and those uninfected were treated the same. Both the “guilty” and the innocent were subject to the same punishment.
While it is proper for government to forcibly quarantine those infected with certain deadly diseases, the government must first prove that an individual is actually infected. (The threshold for such action is a separate issue and is beyond the scope of this paper. Such criteria requires the input of relevant experts—philosophers, lawyers, and infectious disease experts.) And to prove that, the individual must be tested.
But the government didn’t limit its lockdown to infected individuals. It locked down everyone. It did so, at least in part, because it could not identify who was infected and who was not infected. And it could not make that determination because of the shortage of test kits. That shortage was caused by a combination of government’s poor preparation for the pandemic and the bureaucratic bottleneck imposed by FDA regulations. Rather than admit its errors, the government ordered everyone to “stay home, work safe.”