My new Bloomberg Opinion column opens:

My city’s government has closed the entrance to the parking lot of a park near my home in an effort to prevent people from congregating. The main result, as far as I can judge, is that a lot of people are irritating the neighborhood outside the entrance by parking their cars there illegally. The closure does not appear to have done anything to stop the spread of the coronavirus, even if crowding in parks were a vector for transmission — which a recent study suggests it isn’t.

I go on to say that even if the broad outlines of lockdown policies are necessary, as I believe, overzealous enforcement has drawbacks that include running the risk of discrediting them.