Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing what can only be described as some inconsistencies with respect to the recently decreed, that is the only real word for it, “Mask Mandate” here in Thailand. A recent article from the Nation, that is nationthailand.com, the article is titled: New Regulations Allow Some Relaxation in Wearing Masks During Meetings. Quoting directly: "The announcement says that people are required to wear masks when out of home or in public places organizing events with high numbers of participants and physical proximity." Quoting further: "If a group of persons are required to attend a meeting in a particular location for a long and continuous period of time, wearing a mask can be inconvenient and hinder performance. There is relaxation if the meeting prescribes screening measures based on disease prevention measures, social distance is maintained, the attendees are wearing a mask and show a COVID-19 test certificate of being free from infection. In these situations, the meeting supervisor may waive only during discussion or expressing of opinions at the meeting as appropriate in the circumstances." I have to be honest, I don't even understand this.

So again, let's start with the requirement that masks be worn the minute you leave your home. We have already done a video on this again full disclosure from me. I am not a tremendous fan of the Government telling anybody to wear anything. That stated, that is my personal opinion and I will continue doing the analysis on this trying to keep my personal bias out of it. We have already done the legal analysis of the specific citation of the Communicable Diseases Act and my personal opinion is based on a plain language reading of that, the analysis regarding the Government's ability to do this, in my opinion is rather attenuated at best. So leaving that aside, let's just look at the Mandate and then this this latest easing if you will because to me, the whole thing seems internally inconsistent. Starting with the "not wearing masks outside your home"; we are going to go ahead and put this up on screen. This is from the WHO so who.int, this is titled: Coronavirus Disease COVID-19: Masks. Quoting directly: "When outside, wear a mask if you cannot maintain physical distance from others. Some examples are busy markets, crowded streets and bus stops." So presumably if you are not doing those things don't really get bent out of shape about not wearing a mask is what the WHO seems to be saying. To me that seems logically consistent with what they are going for here okay. Not getting into the efficacy of masks or any of that, but presuming there is efficacy, if you are out and you are alone out on a street no one is around you, what purpose is wearing a mask is basically what I get from the WHO themselves. If you are in a busy market or crowded street or something, okay presuming the efficacy issues are all there, that makes some sense. 

Now going back to this new policy. So for one, if the issue is mitigation then they say you have to wear it if you are out of the home at any time. Well okay, but if I am around no one and I am out of the home, why would I need to do that?  Then, you are now easing this requirement if you are in meetings, presumably indoors with other people. One would think, it would be my logical chain of reasoning that indoors around people is the place where mask wearing you would need to have the highest priority, you would want mask wearing to occur the most. I would think if you were to gradiate it, different activities one can do when leaving one's home, walking around outdoors around nobody would seem to be the most innocuous while having meetings with a bunch of people and "discussions or expressings of opinions" that would seem to be a time when perhaps again if one views this as being overly necessary, that would be one of the times I would think it would be more beneficial than compared to just out of your home. The other thing is, in order to do this, "social distance is maintained, the attendees are wearing a mask and show a COVID-19 test certificate of being free from infection", so they have to have basically a PCR test to come to this meeting, this hypothetical meeting. "In these situations, the meeting supervisor may waive, only during discussions or expressing of opinions at the meeting as appropriate in the circumstances." To me this looks like it has just been crafted, candidly for meetings of Bureaucrats. I mean I guess I could see situations where large Corporations may be able to put all of these preconditions into effect. They could bring together a situation where they have got this meeting, everybody shows up wearing masks; they arrange for all these tests to be done so nobody has to wear the mask in this meeting. It just looks to me like this is being crafted for a specific purpose. You don't come out with something like this if you don't have a specific purpose in mind so it begs the question to me why in this context is this okay? Why is it any different from a group of people sitting around outdoors talking to one another? I mean presumably outdoors is better than indoors and they are not having a meeting, they are just talking or something. I could hypothesize forever and ever, that is not the purpose of this video and I don't think it does anybody any good. The purpose of this video is this new announcement just to me, it almost when I sort of lay it out in my thinking, the exception almost to me defeats the purpose of the rule to begin with.

So again anybody that has watched these videos, they know where my biases just are, but to me just on a legal analysis standpoint, it makes far less sense to me now that this new exception has been rolled out than it even did before they had the exception. Again one man's opinion but maybe this will evolve further and we will certainly keep you updated on this channel as it does.