Locking Down the Outdoors: A Cautionary Tale in Arbitrary Power
When Covid-19 hit in March 2020, governors quickly showed they were willing to abuse their emergency powers. They closed schools and most businesses, taking what at first seemed reasonable measures to prevent viral spread in crowded rooms. But then they also closed outdoor public spaces—parks, trails, beaches, waterways, and even children’s playgrounds. They had police enforce these closures by writing tickets and making arrests.
There was no scientific basis for these outdoor shutdowns. Even the earliest research showed that outdoor lockdowns did more harm than good. It showed that the risk of Covid-19 transmission outdoors was minimal (i.e., 20-fold to 50-fold less) compared with the risk of transmission indoors—which was where the outdoor lockdowns forced people to remain.[1] Researchers also found that outdoor sunlight and fresh air further reduced Covid transmission by dispersing viral particles and strengthening immune responses to the virus.
Some officials heeded this evidence. Florida reopened its beaches and parks in April. Other jurisdictions reopened outdoor spaces over the next few months, usually while prohibiting large outdoor gatherings. But other jurisdictions kept outdoor shutdowns in place. California kept many beaches closed into the fall, and some states barred children from playgrounds into 2021.
These shutdowns were devasting to physical and mental health.[2] Closing the outdoors eliminated some of the best outlets for physical activity, social interaction, and general respite from the cabin fever induced by indoor lockdowns. The physical and mental costs fell hardest on people least able to bear them. Closing the parks especially punished urban lower-income families without backyards or vacation homes. Their children suffered most of all—isolated from their school friends, cooped up indoors, and denied even the basic right to run around a playground.
Closing these outdoor spaces for a single day was unjustified. Keeping them closed for months was a scientific, legal, and public health disaster—one we can blame squarely on governors’ unchecked emergency powers. Ordinarily it is the legislature’s job using its police powers to consider such momentous new policies. Unlike governors, legislatures represent a wide range of interests. Legislators would have demanded evidence to justify the high human cost of these outdoor shutdowns. Some would have spoken up for the communities the closures disproportionately harmed and the impact on individual liberty. Legislatures would have held hearings, deliberated, and negotiated. But the governors’ emergency declarations short-circuited those democratic processes, blocking legislatures from playing their constitutionally designated role.
This saga of empty parks and playgrounds—while the population remained trapped indoors—recounts a cautionary tale we must not forget. It should remind us that the checks and balances that assign specific roles to the three branches of government are not just a civics-book abstraction. Especially in difficult times, they provide a bulwark that protects ordinary citizens from the human costs of arbitrary power to both health and liberty.
[1] See Peter Sullivan, Evidence mounts that outside is safer when it comes to COVID-19, The Hill, May 6, 2020; Bulfone, et al., Outdoor Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and Other Respiratory Viruses, a Systematic Review, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Nov. 2020 (addressing research studies through August 12, 2020).
[2] See, e.g., Slater, et al., Recommendations for Keeping Parks and Green Space Accessible for Mental and Physical Health During COVID-19 and Other Pandemics, Preventing Chronic Disease (July 9, 2020) (linking quarantine measures such as closing parks and green spaces to poor mental health outcomes).
April 21, 2025