This is especially important when temperatures are poised to top 20°C for the first time since September, making this precisely the kind of sunny spring day which in normal times would have had us all dashing outdoors. In particularly poor timing it's also a Sunday, when most of those now working from home don't have to work, and the start of what would have been the school holidays. How do you persuade a population that's been cooped up for ages to remain at home?
Staying home matters because the only defence we have against the virus at present is not to pass it on. Now is not the time to meet up in the park for football or drive to the countryside for a picnic or go round to your relatives for a barbecue, because this could undo all the good you've been doing by staying indoors previously. It shouldn't be hard to drive the message home.
But this depends on what the message actually is, which might not be what you think.
Stay at home
• Only go outside for food, health reasons or work (but only if you cannot work from home)
• If you go out, stay 2 metres (6ft) away from other people at all times
• Wash your hands as soon as you get home
Do not meet others, even friends or family. You can spread the virus even if you don’t have symptoms.
'Health reasons' is a wonderfully vague catch-all phrase, which could mean anything from a medical necessity to popping outside for a dose of vitamin D.
Clicking through to explore the FAQs confirms that 'exercise' is one of the four reasons you're allowed to leave your house.
• one form of exercise a day, for example a run, walk, or cycle - alone or with members of your household
Once a day may be pretty clear, but duration is not mentioned. Anything you might have heard about a one hour maximum is merely a recommendation suggested by certain ministers, not a definitive limit.
The only official guidance on duration is hidden further down the page under the question Can I walk my dog / look after my horse? The answer is yes, unsurprisingly. But it goes on to say this about general exercise...
You can also still go outside once a day for a walk, run, cycle. When doing this you must minimise the time you are out of your home...
So we should all be keeping our daily exercise to a minimum, apparently, although I doubt that most people have registered this guidance and 'minimise' is such a wilfully vague term as to be almost meaningless.
Legally, according to the regulations rushed through Parliament a few weeks ago, it's even vaguer.
During the emergency period, no person may leave the place where they are living without reasonable excuse.
A reasonable excuse includes the need...to take exercise either alone or with other members of their household.
In particular there's nothing in law or in any of the online guidance - main listorsubpages - about driving. You might have been led to believe that a daily walk or cycle ride must start from home, but this supposed restriction isn't backed up by anything official. Driving somewhere remote to go for a walk is not banned, however frowned upon it may have become. What's not allowed is meeting up with other people when you get there.
Other countries are being far more stringent, for example France has put 1km limits on daily exercise and is forcing people to carry signed papers when outside. But Britain's lockdown is somewhat woollier, so far, relying on good sense rather than enforcement. A libertarian Prime Minister was never likely to enforce prescribed restrictions on freedom unless absolutely necessary.
But a lack of definitive protocols has led to a broad range of 'acceptable' behaviours. Some are happy to pop round to a friend's house for drinks because "there's no law against it" and they don't see why they shouldn't. Others see nothing wrong with meeting mates in the park having judged themselves unlikely to catch the virus, or at least young enough not to be significantly affected by it. By focusing on self rather than community, these idiots are entirely disregarding their role in passing the disease on to others.
At the other end of the scale are the rabid curtain-twitchers counting how many times their neighbours leave the house and tutting at photos of peloton traffic jams in their newspaper. They're convinced the law sets a limit on daily exercise, despite the fact it doesn't, and can't imagine why anyone needs to go the park because surely they have a garden. In particular these are the muppets who think their viewpoint is obvious when in fact, as we've seen, nothing is obvious at all.
Just because you've seen the news doesn't mean everyone has. Just because something's in your newspaper doesn't mean everyone else has read it, or should read it. Just because you watch the daily press conference religiously doesn't mean others even know it exists. Just because all the guidance is up on a website doesn't mean everybody's checked it, let alone gone back to check for updates. I'm still waiting to receive a single piece of official coronavirus collateral through my letterbox... which would be the only way to get definitive information to (almost) everyone.
Interestingly the scientific models referenced by the government three weeks ago never assumed 100% compliance with social distancing protocols. They only assumed that 70% of those with symptoms would self-isolate for 7 days, that 50% of households would quarantine themselves for 14 days if someone was ill and that 75% of those aged over 70 would significantly reduce social contact for the duration. The study's message was that stemming the spread of coronavirus in the wider population could be achieved with general modification of behaviours, rather than total compliance, because bulk action is all it takes to reduce the average number of transmissions to below 1.
Not every unnecessary kickabout or misguided barbecue has consequences. But, crucially, every avoidable social contact has potential consequences given that the disease can still be passed on by those with no symptoms.
What most important isn't whether you go to the park today, it's what you don't do when you get there.
