The only thing that should be surprising about this ruling is the dissent. They can’t cite any applicable case law because there isn’t any. Up until now the Court has always treated the states’ (note states and not federal) police power in a pandemic to be near plenary. This is in line with English common law that developed under the shadow of the repeated waves of Bubonic Plague. Maybe that should change in light of…
We're becoming a technological society; most people recieved life-saving information directly from infectious disease experts giving interviews on CNN, Fox, CNBC, and so forth. If you are successful in stopping a pandemic, most people won't know you stopped it, and furthermore, once you have it contained, you have to deal with keeping it contained because unlike spanish flu, you have no herd immunity.
I think just on first hand knowledge alone, most people don't believe there's been a pandemic and they'd be correct in that viewpoint; something else, something very novel, and probably very good for us all, has gone on.
What I find particularily onerous about this ruling is the Supreme Court is using the term "church" in their writing; given, it's a church that's filing the lawsuit, however, they are not using language such as "places of worship" or "Religious instutitions". Do these rules apply to Synagoges and Mosque's? It gives the feeling that if we were dealing with those institutions, an entirely different discussion would be had and that's dangerous given groups of armed protesters are willing to peacefully walk in and occupy government buildings in a show of force.