Trump Leaves the Op­tion of Quar­an­tine Widely in the Hands of State Gov­er­nors; What That Means for Bethel

MISHAWAKA – Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, on Wednes­day, April 1, said that, though he and the mem­bers of his cab­i­net had dis­cussed the is­sue of a na­tional shut­down, they would ul­ti­mately leave the de­ci­sion of quar­an­tine up to the states and their gov­er­nors. On the same day, Sur­geon Gen­eral Jerome Adams said, “We trust the gov­er­nors and the may­ors to un­der­stand whether or not they feel like they can trust the peo­ple in their states to make the right de­ci­sions.” 

This be­ing the case, In­di­ana Gov. Eric Hol­comb, at a press con­fer­ence on Fri­day, April 3, ex­tended the pub­lic health emer­gency for the state of In­di­ana for 30 more days, the new end date be­ing May 3.In­di­ana’s state-wide stay-at-home-or­der has been ex­tended for two weeks more, con­tin­u­ing through April 20. The Bethel cam­pus will re­main closed un­til that time. 

Though leav­ing the more de­fin­i­tive de­ci­sions to the gov­er­nors, Trump and his ad­min­is­tra­tion have made the gen­eral guide­lines very clear for all Amer­i­cans: stay in­side as much as pos­si­ble, work from home if pos­si­ble and avoid large groups of peo­ple. De­spite ad­her­ing to the na­tion’s fed­er­al­ist modus operandi, the ab­sence of a re­sponse on a na­tional level has some law­mak­ers and gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials con­cerned about the spread of the virus, es­pe­cially con­sid­er­ing in­di­vid­u­als who, though not ex­hibit­ing any symp­toms, are still trans­mit­ting the virus by be­ing out in pub­lic. 

Though all of these of­fi­cial mea­sures are be­ing en­acted, they all fol­low from the same gen­eral ad­vice that Bethel Uni­ver­sity stu­dents have un­doubt­edly been hear­ing for the past few weeks: prac­tice so­cial dis­tanc­ing, wash your hands fre­quently and avoid touch­ing your face. The stay-at-home or­ders and self-iso­la­tion prac­tices that both state gov­er­nors and Pres­i­dent Trump are rec­om­mend­ing all stem from those ba­sic prac­tices; if stu­dents stick to fol­low­ing those rules and any state laws that might ac­com­pany them, they will be min­i­miz­ing their risk and oth­ers’ to the virus.