Emergency Legal Preparedness and Response
During disease outbreaks or natural disasters, jurisdictions may take divergent legal approaches in their responses to national or regional public health threats. Legal authorities vary across states, tribal governments and localities during declared emergencies. Conflicting laws and overlapping jurisdictions further complicate key decisions on when or how to respond.
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Resources
Crisis Standards of Care: COVID-19 State Invocations
Proposed Limits on Public Health Authority: Dangerous for Public Health
Federal Vaccine Mandates: Assessing their Legalities
Michigan School Districts’ Legal Authority and Responsibility to Protect Students from COVID-19
COVID-19 and Crisis Standards of Care Implementation: Navigating the Legal Challenges
Guidance: OSHA’s COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate Standard for Large Employers
Guidance: COVID-19 Vaccine Emergency Use Authorizations and Off-label Prescribing – Considerations for Healthcare Providers
COVID-19 Vaccination Mandates: Recent Court Cases
Upgrading Public Health Infrastructure: The Need to Protect, Rebuild, and Strengthen State and Local Public Health Departments
Guidance: Waiver of EMTALA Re: Hospital Implementation of Crisis Standards of Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Back-to-School Legal Trends and Challenges Relating to COVID-19
Back to School: Overview of Legal Challenges to Mask and Vaccine Requirements
Spotlight
Opportunity to Promote Public Health for Workers Exposed to Extreme Heat
Public Health Law Strategies to Prevent and Reduce Human Health Impacts of Climate Change
Avian Flu Response: Who Does What?
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A Closer Look at Emergency Legal Preparedness and Response
Public health officials may face many critical legal and policy decisions during public health emergencies, including:
- Inter-jurisdictional legal coordination of federal, tribal, state and local actors in real-time emergencies under changing legal norms
- The ability to issue isolation or quarantine orders, or other social distancing methods, to control public health threats
- Whether to close or dismiss schools, or other public assemblies, temporarily or for prolonged periods to prevent the spread of communicable diseases
- The authority to mandate vaccinations for minors or autonomous adults, including health care workers
- Licensing, credentialing and privileging out-of-state health practitioners
- Inter-jurisdictional management of scarce resources including personnel, vaccines, shelter and sustenance
- Omnipresent concerns over liability of public health practitioners during emergencies
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