Just an FYI: The nationwide emergency was declared by the Trump Administration on March 13,2020 . From that point on, the states were empowered to handle things as they saw best (and in some cases, the states passed that responsibility on to cities, towns, boroughs and counties). This made finding consistent regulation difficult at best. Nevertheless, there were enforcement measures, including: suspension of business operations/licenses, criminal enforcement, sentence enhancement/charge stacking . No one was really immune; even the red governor of a blue state was cracking down . The Public Health emergency officially ended under the Biden Administration on May 11th, 2023 . Which means when Trump was on Twitter say this state or that state should be "free" and "open," and while the Biden campaign was guilting Democrats to vote in the primaries so he could beat Bernie Sanders, the country was still in the midst of dealing with COVID-19 health emergency.