[markdown]

Which is why shutting down non-essential services is a good half-measure.

Meat-packing plants are an essential service, so they are allowed to remain open, but they are temporarily shut down once it becomes evident that a few workers have been infected and the risk of infection for the other workers rises to... as you put it "unacceptable".

Sadly, in at-will employment states, only the rich get to decide what is an acceptable level of risk.

[mlyle]

In most at-will states, public health officials have been making the decision about "acceptable level of risk".

And, of course, any at-will employee is free to choose to not work in an environment that they personally consider to be too high of a level of risk, even if their employer and local public health officials disagree.

I'm in an at-will jurisdiction-- there's a whole bunch of people here who want to work but have been precluded from doing so because of public health orders.