"The law" gives public health officials authority to issue those "edicts". Try taking them to court and see how far that gets you. Hint: not very.

Some people seem to have done pretty well in court bringing a case against unconstitutional edicts: https://www.npr.org/2021/04/10/986010977/supreme-court-rules...

Restricting religion and regulating a factory are pretty different. The first runs directly afoul of the constitution, while the second is clearly within the purview of regulators and public health officials.

I was thinking of Jacobson v Massachusetts in my original comment, which upheld state and local governments' broad authority in public health.

Here's a balanced view of the powers affirmed in Jacobson and how that has changed over time to better protect individual liberty: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1449224/

Note however that applies to individuals, not factories or places of business which are subject to much more regulation.

Ironically, I believe this was overturning a law made by elected officials (on constitutional grounds)

Well, given how nobody was prosecuted, taking it to court seems unnecessary, which was my point.

If that was your point, you did a poor job of making it.

Not being prosecuted is not the same as not guilty.

The California Executive Order creating a shutdown was issued by the Governor, who is elected.

It makes me so sad that it's impossible to have a polite conversation these days without clinical paranoids popping in at every juncture to say, "COVID is a hoax! Public health officials are frauds! Medicine is meaningless!"

Huh?