The lockdown during
Coronavirus is excessive because the law is too low-resolution to capture the
full and complex gamut of human needs. While there's definitely a spectrum
ranging from essential trips (key workers doing their jobs, food shopping,
getting medication for a vulnerable family member) to non-essential trips
(parties, barbecues, sports events), there are definitely trips out that are
currently deemed illegal that are both harmless and socially beneficial.
Here are some fictional
cases I just made up. Take beloveds Jack and Jill, who both live on their own
and work from home, but who visit each other because they love and miss each
other. Take Bob, who suffers from depression, and who finds solace in his
weekly catch ups around his best friend Frank's house. Take Margaret, who lives alone, but who
takes inspiration from going out to paint landscapes, and needs to keep busy
and creative for her own well-being. Or take Belinda who has started dating
Jack and doesn't want the seed of something special to fail to germinate; or
Wendy who comforts her brother and recent widower David with hugs and help with
his domestic responsibilities.
While we can easily
sympathise with the spirit of the current social restrictions, there are many
safe, low-risk ways to go out that impose no significant danger for anyone else
but the participants, but that would be prohibited under the current lockdown
laws, and constitute an unfair imposition on the people involved.
To those people, my
light-hearted tip to get around this problem and avoid having to lie to the
police if you're stopped is this: become what we might call Schrödinger's
Shopper. That is, when you go out safely to see your beloved, or safely to
provide a hug and comfort for your lonely friend, or safely to buy the paints
you need to stimulate your life with meaning and avoid the doldrums of mental
inertia, adopt a Schrödinger-esque superposition state of being both a shopper
or not a shopper depending on whether you get stopped by the police.
If you're
travelling to see another person in safe circumstances, then if you make your
trip without getting stopped by the police, no problem. If however you do get
stopped, tell the police you're about to go shopping, and then go shopping,
make your visit to where you were going, then drive home with your shopping (or
shop for the person you are visiting - the world is your oyster), ensuring no
lie has been told, and you've covered yourself by being both a shopper or not a
shopper depending on whether you get pulled over and asked what you're doing
out.
