It's useful to distinguish between big government in the sense of large scale economic intervention and regulation, and in the sense of emergency response. Public health based mandates shouldn't be part of a partisan platform, but evaluated on the basis of their efficacy in dealing with an emergency -- like a pandemic. I can respect the ideas of smaller government in the former sense, but not the latter. In the latter case, medical science must be the authority.
If there's a hurricane and a million people are rendered homeless, that's not the time to talk about shrinking the role of FEMA or emergency aid in general because you like small government. Emergencies require prompt and massive efforts, not prolonged debates on political philosophy.
As for the congresswoman of Colorado, cheating to get around the law is exactly what is destroying the integrity of the Law and Order Party.