Readers respond: Fix the permanent rule law - OregonLive

Your Jan. 23 editorial “State should drop proposal for permanent indoor mask rule” omitted mentioning the law that put us in this mess. Granted, any law cannot cover every situation, but this law is failing us. There seems to be some sort of fear of government overreach that constrains us to either a temporary or permanent condition; this is an artificial constraint we have created. The creators of the law didn’t anticipate a health crisis that would last this long. I characterize this situation as a failure to include an exception in case of emergency. With hospitals filled to capacity, we are in a public health emergency. If we’re lazy, we could simply change the law to allow the renewal of the temporary rule, perhaps limiting it to “x” number of renewals. I would prefer something that provides the outlines of what constitutes an emergency and grant more leeway to the appropriate agency. We can debate what qualifies as an emergency (hospitals at a certain capacity, and positivity rates at a certain percentage, for example) and how much power to grant, but clearly the current law needs fixing.

David Moriwaki, Portland

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source: https://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/2022/01/readers-respond-fix-the-permanent-rule-law.html

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