Eric Schmitt is the Missouri attorney general.
Local health departments are abandoning efforts to stop the spread of the disease because of a recent court ruling and the state's attorney general.
The Laclede County Health Department, northeast of Springfield, announced that it has stopped all COVID-19-related work, including case investigations, contact tracing, and public announcements of current cases and deaths.
The department wrote on Facebook that they had no other options but to follow the orders of the Missouri Attorney General.
Laclede county, which has around 35,000 residents, has seen a 71 percent increase in new cases over the last two weeks. The last two weeks have seen a 48 percent increase in hospitalizations. Only 35 percent of the population is fully protected.
There is a surge in COVID-19 cases in Missouri. Over the past two weeks, the state has seen an increase in new COVID-19 cases. Over the past two weeks, daily hospitalizations have increased by 45 percent. Around a dozen of the state's 114 counties have vaccination percentages in the 20s, but 52 percent of the state is fully vaccineed.
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A court ruling.
Health officials in Laclede and other places are pulling back rather than ramping up health prevention measures, according to a December 7 letter from the state Attorney General. A recent court ruling stripped state health agencies of a variety of disease-prevention powers, including issuing isolation and quachicles orders. "You should stop publicizing any such orders immediately," the letter said.
The Cole County Circuit Court judge entered a judgment in the case of Shannon Robinson and her co-conspirators on November 22. Robinson and her co-plaintiffs challenged the powers of health agencies to issue restrictions to prevent the spread of disease. The DHSS case was defended by the Attorney General.
Green ruled that it was unconstitutional for the state to give disease prevention powers to unelected health officials.
The authority that the DHSS regulations give to an administrative official to implement control measures and create and enforce orders is open-ended discretion, which allows naked lawmaking by bureaucrats throughout Missouri, Green wrote in his judgment.
The state's constitution was violated by the regulations 19 CSR 20-20.040(2) G-I, 19 CSR 20-20.040(6), and 19 CSR 20-20.050 (3). Local health authorities are charged with the responsibility of establishing disease-control measures, investigating clusters or outbreaks of illness, and implementing appropriate control measures when necessary. Control measures can include isolation, sterilization, and other measures to protect against diseases. Regulation 19 CSR 20-20.050 (3) specifically deals with the power to close schools and other public and private gathering places.
Green wrote that local health officials should not take actions on communicable disease prevention that require independent discretion in a way that is inconsistent with his opinion.
