‘We have his back’

“‘We have his back’”, Carmel Pine Cone – Sept. 10, 2021

I have not been a fan of Monterey County health officer Dr. Ed Moreno because he
has tended to follow the crowd rather than the science.

But in recent weeks, there has been a sea change in his thinking: he justifies his decisions by looking at the data. He recently argued that we don’t need an indoor mask mandate because the case numbers are low, current measures seem to be working, the vaccination rate is high, and even many of the unvaccinated have natural immunity because of earlier Covid infections.

But county supervisor Luis Alejo tried to override Moreno’s judgment with a new county-wide mask mandate. Alejo’s reasoning? He said, “I think we are just trying to resort back to what our public is familiar with, what we have done before.” In other words, let’s not make our decisions based on data or reasoning but, instead, on what we’re used to. That is not, to put it mildly, good reasoning.

Those of us, and there are many, who have been critical of Dr. Moreno should assure him that, this time, we have his back.

David R. Henderson, Pacific Grove