The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention orders a stop to evictions. Why doesn't it order everyone to wear a mask in public?

This week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, acting under authority given to the Surgeon General and the Department of Health and Human Services, issued an order entitled "Temporary Halt in Residential Evictions to Prevent the  Further Spread of COVID-19," which you can read in the Federal Register here.  The order prohibits landlords from evicting residential tenants for nonpayment of rent if:

• The tenant has tried to obtain all available government housing assistance;
• The tenant expects to earn $99,000 or less in 2020 ($198,000 or less for a couple), or was not required to report any income in 2019, or received a CARES Act Economic Impact Payment;
• The tenant can't pay the full rent due to substantial loss of household income, work, or wages, or a layoff, or extraordinary medical expenses;
• The tenant is trying to make timely partial payments of as much of the rent as possible; and
• Eviction would likely make the tenant homeless or force the tenant into group living.

How does CDC get the authority to freeze evictions of residential tenants?  It comes from 42 USC §264, a provision of federal law that authorizes the Surgeon General to "make and enforce such regulations as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into the States or possessions, or from one State or possession into any other State or possession.”

The  Knower of All Things observes that an order prohibiting residential evictions in the United States won't do anything to prevent communicable diseases from entering the United States, and it won't do anything to prevent communicable diseases such as COVID-19 from spreading from state to state unless the assumption is that evicted tenants will change states.  He adds that if CDC has the power to issue an order to prohibit residential evictions, then CDC also has the power to order everyone to wear a mask in public, which CDC recommends but is strangely reluctant to direct.

It's time for CDC to face up to facts and act on its own advice.