Utah state lawmaker to offer bill banning ‘unilaterally quarantining healthy citizens’

A state representative in Utah said this week he is drafting legislation that would ban “unilaterally quarantining healthy citizens.”

Rep. Paul Ray (R), a COVID-19 community task force member, said Monday that the state should halt closing businesses and cease regulations on healthy citizens, according to the Deseret News.

“We need to open Utah and allow people to make their own decisions. Encourage compromised individuals to isolate, but don’t bankrupt everyone else,” he wrote on Facebook. “It’s time to stop letting panic and fear drive our policy.”

Gov. Gary Herbert (R) lifted some lockdown measures Friday by allowing some businesses to reopen and limiting gatherings to 20 people or fewer, while maintaining directives to socially distance and wear masks in public.

Ray said the state needs to give the green light and remove all restrictions, according to an interview with the Deseret News.

“I’ve met with a lot of doctors, a lot of health guys that say we should save every life. Well, that’s not our job as a government. Our job is to balance things and let people make their own decisions, and we can’t save everybody. That’s something we just can’t do,” Ray said.

He added that the lockdown would permanently close numerous businesses, citing the Utah Restaurant Association’s estimate that 25 percent of restaurants would not reopen due to the state orders.

“The best stimulus package we can give is to open our businesses up and let them revive the economy. It won’t cost the taxpayers a dime,” he said.

Herbert, along with the state epidemiologist, Angela Dunn, said regulations have been guided by scientific data about the coronavirus, the Deseret News reported.