The Atlantic

Governors Are Passing the Coronavirus Buck to Mayors

After blocking local efforts to halt the spread of the virus, state leaders are now handing off some authority—and responsibility.
Source: Tom Fox-Pool / Getty

No one wants to catch the coronavirus. That goes just as much for policy makers, who don’t want to have to handle it, as it does for ordinary citizens, who don’t want to get sick from it.

As case counts soar in Arizona and Texas, governors in those states are loosening restrictions on what local leaders can do to fight COVID-19 that they’d earlier imposed. By now, that may be too little and too late to meaningfully stop viral spread, but it does shift the onus from state capitols to city and county officials.

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