Coronavirus: You can’t make rules to fit every situation and these ones are being made in a hurry

NSW police ask a family at a park in Sydney’s Rushcutters Bay to move on as part of the state's bid to enforce social distancing measures. Picture: Sky News

But these rules make no sense, the people cried, not just now, but pretty much always. Because isn’t that the nature of rules? You can’t make them to fit every situation. There are always anomalies. And these ones are being made in a hurry.

The circumstances are unprecedented; the stakes unimaginably high.

But sure, let’s go through some examples: should you head out to the woods today, or more likely to the park, you will likely find the play equipment all taped off.

But children can go to preschool, where they will undoubtably slobber all over each other.

You cannot, as a salty old sea dog, go down to the beach at dawn as you have done every day of your retirement, and dip your barnacled old back into the sea.

You can, along with packs of others, run along the foreshore, spraying out sweat beads.

You could not, until last night, see your partner in Victoria if you did not live with them. In practice, that meant no sex between boyfriends and girlfriends in Victoria but hey, go for it in NSW.

You can go to the hairdresser, but not the nail technician. You can’t get a wax, but you can get a shave.

Teenagers must not gather at the shopping centre. But they are supposed to be at school.

You can go outside to exercise. But you must not stop to rest on the public bench (one lady says she was fined.)

It’s going on all over the world: some beaches in the US are closed; some are open; some of these beaches kiss up against each other, so you’ve got a crowd on one side, and not so much as footprints in the sand on the other.

State of chaos in Florida, where beaches in the county of Duval are closed, whilst those in neighbouring St John are not.

Some will of course call it absurd. Pauline Hanson has done so, and she’s been congratulated. She wants to visit her daughter in Tasmania, and she can’t, because the border is closed. She could, in theory, visit her sick daughter for “caring” reasons if she lived in Melbourne, but not if she was coming from Queensland, only if she was coming from NSW, the state with the highest number of infections.

Does that sound messy? Yes. These are messy, stressful times. But it’s perhaps worth remembering that all rules have at least two redeeming features:

a) you can change them (the bonk ban, for example, was lifted in Victoria last night.)

b) in theory at least, they apply in their absurdity equally to everyone.