Back in July or August, I was walking along Alvarado Street minding my own business. Suddenly, someone with a Monterey city government worker logo on his shirt came up to me and told me I had to wear a mask. I asked him to show me in the regulations where it said that. The sign above admits of no exceptions but the regulatory document is pages long. A local lawyer friend only a few days earlier had explained to me that one wasn’t legally required to wear a mask if one were exercising. I was on my daily quick walk.
So he pulled out the regulations to show me that there wasn’t such an exception. I walked over to look over his shoulder so I could show him the exception. He told me he was uncomfortable with my being so close without a mask. That’s fair, I thought, so I donned my mask. Neither Bill (his name) nor I could find the exception that my lawyer friend had told me about. For that reason, I wore my mask for the rest of my walk.
But when I got back to my office and got on line, I did find a 6-foot exception but not the exercise exception. I printed out the regs and started carrying them with me on my daily walk.
A couple of days later, I was starting out on my walk with no other pedestrians nearby when I saw a car with the Monterey city government logo drive by and turn the corner on the one-way street I had just crossed. I thought it might be Bill, the guy who had stopped me a few days earlier, but I couldn’t tell because he had had his mask on when he was walking. I figured I was safe because he was turning down a one-way street. Not wanting another confrontation, I ignored the fact that he was shouting out his window at me as he turned the corner, but I put on my mask just in case.
Then something amazing happened. Even though I couldn’t see him because it was a blind corner, I heard his car back up. He backed up all the way the wrong way on a one-way street and then turned to follow me in the road. He lowered his window to tell me that he had checked the regulations on line after having stopped me and that there was no exercise exception. I waved and thanked him.
But notice what happened. Bill thought that informing me of the absence of the exercise exception was so important that it was reasonable for him to risk backing up the wrong way when a car easily could have come around the corner and rear-ended him.
This was a microcosm of what’s so wrong with the regulatory mindset that so many bureaucrats bring to the Covid issue. Don’t worry about causing an accident because it’s so important to tell this pedestrian (me) what he had already told me a few days earlier: that there was no exercise exception to the Covid regulations.
READER COMMENTS
AMT
Mar 18 2021 at 7:00pm
Oh come on. You interpret this like he was some monster creating unnecessary risk with his driving, which I am very skeptical of based on your description, because if he wasn’t paying any attention to his driving then that is something you of course would have mentioned, but you did not, implying he was indeed careful and knew there were no vehicles. Are you also going to be aghast at the person who looks both ways at a red light at 3am and proceeds through the intersection because there isn’t a vehicle for a mile in any direction? Maybe you should instead focus on how this person did more than required to kindly provide you with that the information.
BC
Mar 18 2021 at 8:23pm
Wait, are you saying that it’s ok to ignore safety rules like backing up the wrong way on a one-way street when it’s clear from context that doing so is safe, kind of like not wearing a mask outdoors when it’s clear from context the doing so is safe?
AMT
Mar 18 2021 at 8:54pm
Sure, I don’t have a problem focusing on the spirit of the law rather than the letter, and it seems apparent this worker was unaware of the 6-foot exception.
But I think the most important takeaway here is that if this anecdote is considered worth throwing into the mix to try to advance an argument against mask regulations, then David clearly is scraping the absolute bottom of the barrel trying to come up with just anything that might stick, because this is literally the least persuasive argument I ever expected he could come up with.
suddyan
Mar 21 2021 at 10:27am
[But I think the most important takeaway here is that if this anecdote is considered worth throwing into the mix to try to advance an argument against mask regulations…]
Oh, so you are assuming the issue was “to try to advance an argument against mask regulations?”
Maybe you should check your assumption, discard your claimed “most important takeaway,” and argue against the actual issue.
AMT
Mar 21 2021 at 11:07am
No need to assume when you can just read. “This was a microcosm of what’s so wrong with the regulatory mindset that so many bureaucrats bring to the Covid issue.”
David Henderson
Mar 18 2021 at 10:29pm
As I said, he went around the corner and down the street. So when he backed up, he couldn’t see whether someone was coming down the perpendicular street and about to turn the corner.
AMT
Mar 20 2021 at 3:40pm
Everyone knows that if you are aware of your surroundings (e.g. by checking your mirrors) and see there are no vehicles, it is literally, physically impossible for a vehicle to appear within a certain period of time. There is no such thing as magic. The driver certainly knew that he had a few seconds after turning the corner where he could still back up safely based on the situation.
In any case, “x is a bad regulation because supporter of the regulation, y, failed to observe a completely unrelated traffic regulation” is a laughably pathetic argument.
Mark Bahner
Mar 20 2021 at 12:19am
The driver broke the law. He backed up on a one-way street. Near what David described as a “blind turn.” That’s where I think the focus should be.
AMT
Mar 20 2021 at 3:42pm
We’d better lock him up and throw away the key for the incalculable harm he caused to society! Same with the jaywalkers! And those kids that walked on my lawn!
suddyan
Mar 21 2021 at 10:29am
[We’d better lock him up and throw away the key for the incalculable harm he caused to society! Same with the jaywalkers! And those kids that walked on my lawn!]
NOT the argument the other commenter made.
JonB
Mar 18 2021 at 7:39pm
Opportunity cost would be another point from an economics perspective,
Consider that the CDC estimates a 2% efficacy of mask use in their multivariate retrospective analyses of mask mandates. Then consider that JAMA editorial policy precludes making causal inference in publication based on cross-sectional studies (low quality) and FDA mandates for randomized trials showing efficacy prior to approval of medical devices (cloth masks don’t work in this context).
The whole mask issue has been an enormous opportunity cost, frightening in magnitude, in terms of distraction from other interventions which would have been much more effective…….
The loss of credibility will take decades to recover. Whole swaths of the public equate “public health expert” with “fraud.”
Nick
Mar 23 2021 at 11:56am
I disagree that the opportunity cost was particularly high because I think posters are missing an important benefit of the mask and I disagree the masking efforts took up many resources.
I view masks as a sort of straw man explanation for those concerned about the virus (or those of a leftist persuasion) for why it was OK to leave your house to shop and congregate in May after April was all about “2 weeks to stop the spread”. I believe politicians realized that total lockdown was totally infeasible and the economic impact unbearable and used masks as a way to get people back to some sort of economic life. Mask promotion was a low-cost way for politicians to make it look like they were doing something and served as a “path to normalcy” for citizens who would otherwise have been afraid to leave their house after the hysteria of March and April.
The masking efforts consisted largely of talking heads lauding masks on cable news and CDC-like bureaucrats making guidance no one read. For business, adding a sign on your front door notifying customers of a mask requirement just doesn’t take much effort. Once masks became readily available, it isn’t much effort to buy some. It makes some people feel better which has some value as well–many people were/are very afraid of the COVID. I think I saw a survey somewhere where around a quarter of respondents believed that COVID had a 20% or more mortality rate.
Phil H
Mar 18 2021 at 8:10pm
No, the real problem is that Bill was a socialist, which made him focus on social conformity to the exclusion of everything else.
Or wait, the real problem was that Bill was white, and his white privilege prevented him from recognizing how bad his driving was.
Or the real problem was that Bill was religious, which makes him used to conforming mindlessly with absurd rules.
It’s tea leaves on a Rorschach test, this stuff. You can read into it whatever you like. Personally, I just see a story of two reasonable people trying to go about their day in a difficult and complex situation. But that’s probably my own biases talking!
Vivian Darkbloom
Mar 19 2021 at 3:56am
For those interested, the relevant Monterey ordinance is ORDINANCE NO. 3618 C.S. (hyperlink complicated, so google if interested).
Under the requirements:
”
While outdoors in public spaces when maintaining a physical distance of 6 feet from persons who are not members of the same household or residence is not feasible.”
Under the specific exemptions:
The following individuals are exempt from wearing a face covering:
Persons who are engaged in outdoor work or recreation such as swimming, walking, hiking, bicycling, or running, when alone or with household members, and when they are able to maintain a distance of at least six feet from others.
That’s a strange construction because literally the recreation “exception” doesn’t grant anything further than the six foot provision under the “requirement” for public outdoor spaces. Clearly something went wrong in the drafting and I think per ordinary statutory construction rules a judge would be inclined (at least *this* judge) to require more to fine someone exercising that someone who is not.
For example, per this summary of the California rules of statutory construction:
“Courts endeavor to interpret statutes to avoid rendering some words surplusage, null or absurd.12”
See, https://www.cacities.org/Resources-Documents/Policy-Advocacy-Section/Legislative-Resources/Presentations-Publications-Papers/Analyzing-A-Bill-Statutory-Construction-Guide
In any event, the burden would be on the City to prove that the 6 foot distance was either violated or “not feasible”. David doesn’t say anything about this regarding his first encounter with Bill.
I agree with AMT that Bill appears to have acted properly and didn’t present a risk to the public by carefully backing his vehicle to communicate with David. But, for me, that’s kind of the point—how does this compare with David not wearing a mask outdoors? I wasn’t there, but it’s hard for me to think that David presented a greater risk than Bill.
Additional question regarding the “exemptions”: How do you swim while wearing a cloth mask? Are cloth masks are required when it is not feasible to always swim more than six feet from another?
J Mann
Mar 19 2021 at 9:59am
Good find. It’s interesting (and funny) to learn that:
David’s lawyer friend was (sort of) right and there is an exercising exemption, but
It’s a nullity because it doesn’t actually permit anything to exercisers that wouldn’t be permitted to someone just lazing about.
krishnan chittur
Mar 20 2021 at 4:03pm
If we have to wear masks when we are OUTSIDE – IN THE OPEN – then we all may start planning our deaths. Outside where the volume is essentially infinity – with convection (wind and so on) and diffusion (movement because of concentration differences) the concentration of any deadly virus is likely to be infinitesimal – AND EVEN IF people are CLOSE to each other – it is still much much more safe than just about anywhere else. When I see governments creating and enforcing rules like masks outside OR when I see a lone swimmer or walker or out on the sea being hauled away for violating the rules of being outside, I wonder WHAT THE HELL is wrong with people? Anti Science, anti reason, anti logic does not even begin to describe this insanity.
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