Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20a136_bq7c.pdf
Page Number: 12.0

Cite as:  592 U. S. ____ (2021) 

3 

KAGAN, J., dissenting 

place outdoors throughout this winter. 
  California’s scheme homes in on these indoor gatherings 
because they pose a heightened danger of COVID transmis-
sion.  In written testimony in this case, Dr. James Watt, the 
Chief of Communicable Diseases at the California Depart-
ment of Public Health, explained: “There is broad consen-
sus  among  epidemiologists  that  transmission  (and  thus 
spread) of the novel coronavirus is more likely” at “[i]ndoor 
public  gatherings,”  which  “bring  together  [many]  people 
from different households.”  Decl. of Dr. James Watt in No. 
3:20–cv–865  (SD  Cal.),  Doc.  81–3,  ¶¶37,  44  (Watt  Decl.).  
Dr. George Rutherford, a professor of epidemiology at the 
University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, 
further  elaborated  on  the  point.    He  described  the  “in-
crease[ ]” in risk when gatherings “are of an extended dura-
tion, and when there is a lot of verbal interaction, especially 
when there is group singing, chanting, or other loud vocali-
zation” like speeches or sermons.  Decl. of Dr. George Ruth-
erford  in  No.  3:20–cv–865,  Doc.  81–4,  ¶91  (Rutherford 
Decl.).  That risk, of course, extends not only to the partici-
pants themselves, but to everyone they associate with in a 
community.  See Watt Decl., ¶42. 
  The  medical  experts  also testified  about why California 
imposed  more  severe  capacity  limits  on  gathering  places 
like churches and theaters than on other indoor sites.  The 
State’s regulation of retail stores is less stringent, Dr. Ruth-
erford  explained,  because  shopping  “involves  less  close 
proximity” with other people—and for less time—than does 
an indoor worship service, lecture, or similar event.  Ruth-
erford Decl., ¶113; see id., ¶117.  For that reason, shoppers 
are “less likely to receive a sufficient viral load of droplets” 
to  contract  COVID.    Id.,  ¶113.    Similarly,  Dr.  Rutherford 
observed,  workplaces  can  have  higher  capacity  limits  be-
cause employers (and, by extension, their employees) must 
comply  with  “detailed,  workplace-specific  COVID  preven-