> shelter-in-place has been instituted locally because the federal government has been an abysmal failure.

shelter-in-place was always going to be a local policy. The US government is simply not set up for the federal government to enact such a policy. What was expected, however, is for the federal government to take a strong advisory position and state and local governments to more or less follow the federal guidelines. It would also not be out of character to see some strong-arming from the federal government to "encourage" compliance from the states