Thread by @acslaw

In several minutes we'll go live to talk with legal experts about #COVID. Follow #ACS2020 for live updates and watch the livestream here: acslaw.org/2020-acs-natio…

ACS Board of Advisors member @RonaldKlain: dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic requires us to answer some hard legal questions #ACS2020

Legal debates around COVID-19 aren't theoretical or abstract. These are questions of life or death. -- @RonaldKlain #ACS2020

.@steve_vladeck observes that the president harbors some hostility "in principle" to the federal government playing an aggressive role in dealing with the #COVID crisis -- e.g., enacting the Defense Production Act, the Stafford Act #ACS2020

Historically, health crises--like COVID-19--have been used as a proxies for racial discrimination, notes @michelebgoodwin #ACS2020

.@DBRodriguez5 notes that state and federal courts have adapted in face of #COVID19, but are struggling to balance deference to states and localities to address public health with our civil rights and liberties

.@mearest -- Participation in criminal legal system is intimately tied to weak social safety net, poor public health and education, lack of housing and employment. #ACS2020

.@mearest asks: How will policing be impacted in places with less stringent stay at home orders and masking requirements, particularly how they police the protests and demonstrations we are seeing everyday? #ACS2020

.@michelebgoodwin notes historically, public health has been a racist, classist trope based in eugenics. Our current measures must be driven by science because otherwise, government will use public health to implement discriminatory aims

How will courts' response to invocation of public health to justify imposing restrictions? @steve_vladeck says courts have been inconsistent so far #ACS2020

.@mearest Public health restrictions are the new broken taillight. Armed first responders are ill equipped to deal with issues facing overpoliced communities during this pandemic and more harshly enforce public health restrictions against them.

.@DBRodriguez5 highlights that the existing landscape of employment, insurance, and tort law are not well equipped to deal with this pandemic

.@michelebgoodwin: 4 out of 5 latinx folks are considered essential workers, but many of these are the same people that have been targeted by our immigration regime in the most heinous type of ways.

There is so much more the fed gov't could do to respond to violence against communities of color and help states and localities employ science, public health approaches, and data to address it, says @mearest.

The medical evidence shows that it's quite dangerous to put pregnant persons in a position where abortion would be denied in the midst of a pandemic, notes @michelebgoodwin #ACS2020 #COVID__19