One of the biggest threats to public health restrictions in a pandemic is when the rules are simply silly. This is exactly what happened over the weekend when Canberrans suddenly found themselves - following a couple of late-night pronouncements - able to shop to their heart's content in Queanbeyan or on the South Coast.
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In the ACT, meanwhile, shops remained shut. The health and political authorities running the city on track to be the world's most vaccinated would not let people into the shops to exercise their non-essential purchasing power. Downright silliness.
Compliance with restrictions across the board is bound to fall if the community comes to see the rules as absurd.
Happily, that will change on Friday, when Canberra's non-essential retailers can reopen while abiding to some strict - but sensible - density limits. There will be no Boxing Day sales style crushes at the checkouts but it will be a welcome relief for many businesses.
The changes to border rules and the reality in NSW no doubt forced the ACT to reconsider, but the public health situation had shifted remarkably too.
Given previous choices made by ACT health authorities, it is highly unlikely such a shift would have been made just because the grass appeared greener on the other side of the border. The risk had changed.
But the ACT is a little island in a big surrounding state. Canberrans have been told repeatedly through the pandemic their border is more of an idea than a hard, enforceable reality. Our COVID-19 destiny is intertwined.
The decision announced on Tuesday showed the ACT government was prepared to move with the times. It would have been bizarre if they had not.
The areas around the ACT are getting very close to 80 per cent full vaccination coverage, the ACT has reached that threshold and case numbers have kept to a manageable level. The chief health officer, Dr Kerryn Coleman, said she was comfortable with a little more fast-tracked easing.
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Chief Minister Andrew Barr on Tuesday said the decision had not been forced by NSW but showed the ACT was adapting to a changing public health reality.
"When facts change or the circumstance changes, we reserve the right, as we have throughout, to recalibrate our approach," Mr Barr said.
The Chief Minister likes to say nothing is predictable in a pandemic. The community, though, craves certainty and it can feel weird when things happen faster - or slower - than expected.
But the one who stubbornly refuses to deviate from their map while refusing to consider the environment in which they find themselves is bound to get lost. That would have been a misguided choice to make at this late juncture.
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Jasper Lindell
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
Jasper Lindell joined The Canberra Times in 2018. He is a Legislative Assembly reporter, covering ACT politics and government. He also writes about development, transport, heritage, local history, literature and the arts, as well as contributing to the Times' Panorama magazine. He was previously a Sunday Canberra Times reporter.
