Individuals appeared to be aged from their late teens to their mid-20s. There was no social distancing at all. About the only thing they weren't doing is holding hands.

I also saw two lots of (I assume) AFP Protective Services Officers on pushbikes patrolling the lake foreshore.

I'm unclear as to who is doing the policing, or if indeed the regulations are being policed at all in some areas.

Supermarket-imposed purchasing limits are starving large families.

This is because purchases of many essential items have been capped at one or two packets or items.

Parents of large families should be allowed to buy more than one-, two-, or three-person households.

This would be easy to police. Medicare cards list the number of dependent children in any household.

It is easy for singles or couples to comply with purchase limits. Parents, especially those with large families, have very different responsibilities and requirements.

It is tough enough bringing up a large family as it is; people in this situation don't need an additional burden at a time like this.

Although I understand the anxiety of people on the South Coast about contracting COVID-19 ("South Coast begs: 'Stay away, Canberra'", March 31, p8) abusing people from Canberra is uncalled for, especially as only a few weeks ago they were begging us to come.

Anecdotal stories suggest people with holiday houses have had locals calling by to tell them to go back to Canberra.

It's unfortunate Canberrans are identifiable by their number plates.

The coastal communities might be more at risk from people from other parts of NSW.

I can't believe the private hospital sector even thought of closing hospitals and sacking nurses at a time like this.

Just when you would think their thoughts would be with the wider community facing this COVID-19 crisis, all they can think about is their bottom line.

They aren't being allowed to do their very lucrative elective surgeries, for which they must have intensive care facilities. It's not good enough.

We need every nurse and every hospital ward to be available to cope with what could be a big run on the health system in the near future.

If the private hospitals aren't up for that they should never be allowed to get funding from the public purse ever again.

2020 is a tough year, I grant you. However, spare a thought for my gorgeous and courageous son, Lachlan Robert Smith, whose wedding anniversary was March 28.

He was married in 2013. He died, extremely reluctantly, six months later at the age of 25. His life was taken by an aggressive young person's cancer; desmoplastic small round cell tumour. That was a real, and totally devastating, tragedy.

Try and keep 2020's hardships in perspective and hold tight to hope.

Re Don Sephton's criticism of "Cafe Eildon" (Letters, March 30).

Mr Sephton has confused social distancing and distant socialising. At the time the Duffy neighbourhood group was set up it was completely legal, and met the terms applied by the government.

Whether it met the "spirit" of those terms is a judgment call to be made by others.

The Eildon Place group has a long history of looking out for one another, especially for some neighbours who are over 90 years of age. Maintaining that culture, to my mind, is just as important as maintaining social distancing for health reasons.

Our group includes an ex-head of a major government department, a doctor, a psychiatrist, a preschool worker, an ex-Defence worker, computer nerds, teachers, engineers, ex-DFAT officers, economists, young mothers with babies and so on.

Members have a lot of information, experience and help to share. We fully expect more restrictions. We have attempted to flatten the curve where social interactions at a distance are concerned.

It is early days at the moment, and the more extreme negative impacts of social isolation are yet to be felt.

Before someone decries the expenditure in Australia to alleviate the current effects of the coronavirus, it is worthwhile to examine the huge monetary cost of a world war in just one nation, Britain.

It took from 1945 until 2006 for the British government to repay the loans it raised to fight fascism.

By comparison, what has been handed out so far in Australia by the Morrison government is small change.

In 1946, Australia's financial position was so much better than Britain's. When the accountants sat down and examined their books, it was found that the Australian Lend Lease debt to the United States was nearly the same as the cost of the foodstuffs provided by Australia to feed all US armed forces located south of the equator.

Governments do not have to think in the same terms as those who manage a household budget. They can print money ("quantitative easing"), and roll the deficit over ad infinitum if need be, and without detriment to future generations.

I recently received a notice for the renewal of my driver's licence. As I'm 77, I will need to get a eye test and visit my doctor and nurse for a medical.

Every time I turn the news on, I'm told that because I'm over 75 I should stay home and not venture outside.

I have been staying home now for some days. But I am also asked to go to Queanbeyan and Canberra to get the necessary checks done to renew my licence.

The eye test requires me to put my chin onto some medical equipment whilst the medical may require both a doctor and a nurse to make physical contact with me.

People like me should have their licence renewal deferred to let the doctors and nurses concentrate on those in real need of their help.

I have written to the NSW government asking if the requirement to go to town for non-essential tests overrides the suggestion I stay home.

I'm still waiting for an answer.

Some years ago our then-chief minister, Kate Carnell, "sold out" to the National Capital Authority when she handed the NCA the site of the old Canberra Hospital in exchange for land at the Kingston foreshore.

In a similar deal, we now see our present Chief Minister "selling out" again by handing the National Capital Authority "a huge parcel of land (some 32 hectares) in north Curtin" for 2.8 hectares of West Basin's lakebed! ("West Basin waterfront upgrade moves closer with deal". CT March 25, p1). No wonder the authority's chief executive, Sally Barnes, believes it to be "nation-building".

The desecration of the West Basin with apartment blocks, and the reconstruction of the London Circuit/ Commonwealth Avenue intersection, will destroy the city as we currently know it.

A woman neighbour has made an art of getting to know the local avian wildlife, initially by watching the procession of birds that come to drink or vigorously wash themselves in a nearby birdbath.

She has become particularly fascinated by the local tribe of magpies, which are the boldest and seemingly most intelligent of all her feathery visitors, who gather around waiting for their morning snack.

Sometimes one gets a little impatient and pecks at her back door or living room window.

My neighbour now recognises each Collingwood-coloured visitor, and has become familiar with one particularly friendly and hungry family and their yearly offspring.

At times she finds it difficult to prevent her newfound friends walking into her living room.

However heartwarming, my neighbour's relationship with her magpie family pales in the face of Steve Evans' marvellous story of the magpie on a lead ("Life when a magpie brings joy to the fearful", March 26, p2).

She may even be a trifle envious.

When the budget was promoted as "back in the black", no one guessed it would actually mean "so far under water it would be black". Have the Liberals promised to never mention Labor's GFC debt ever again?

Our new life cycle: hibernation and then global warming.

It is unfortunate timing for Mark Sproat (Letters, March 31) that his letter, deriding Anthony Albanese and Chris Bowen as Laurel and Hardy, was published the day after the government adopted a large number of their "rubbish" policies.

To my royalist friends, where is our head of state in our hour of need?

Australia's road toll is normally around 3.3 people every day. COVID-19 has killed 19 people in Australia in 72 days. With less traffic, and if deaths remain low, COVID-19 could end up saving Australian lives over the next few months.

COVID-19 may actually be good for the planet. It has demonstrated a large number of us can work from home quite effectively. If only half of those currently working from home continued to do so once this is over the reduction in road and rail congestion, and in emissions, would be significant.

I propose the creation of a National Experts Rating Directorate/Department/Service. This would allow the average punter to call 1800-NERDS and get a rating of all pundits, experts and gurus. They could be cross-filed by affiliation, e.g. the ABC 'spert, the former Fairfax 'spert, the Oz 'spert, the Guardian 'spert and so on. It would save the punters a lot of time and trouble.

Wouldn't now be a great time for the ACT government to hire some of the people who have lost jobs to beautify our sad suburbs?

With waist-high grass/weeds on nature strips and parkland and an overall unkempt appearance of our streets and shopping centres, think of all those who could be gainfully employed in a true "urban renewal" project.

I am booked on a P&O Cruise that was scheduled to leave Sydney on April 27. Obviously it will not be departing. I have heard nothing regarding cancellation and am unable to contact them. Until three weeks ago I was receiving emails asking me to pre-buy onboard drinks.

Does Barnaby Joyce still want government out of his life? What a fool.

Are the relocated employees of the APVMA in Armidale now working from home?

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