If you check social media you’ve likely seen a lot of confusing words used to describe social distancing measures taken in recent days to limit the impact of COVID-19 and its spread as a global pandemic. Social distancing is a general term used to describe limiting person-to-person contact by perhaps working from home or avoiding large groups of people. In general, staying inside is a good idea right now but in these cases it’s not required by law.
Another, more serious term should be quarantining, which is a full restriction of a person’s movement to a single place because it’s suspected that they may have coronavirus and could spread it to others. Someone who is social distancing may still go get groceries if they need them, for example, but a person quarantining should not. All of this is semantics in some ways but that’s not the case in Italy, one of the nations where coronavirus has hit the hardest and the nation has instituted a full-scale lockdown to keep people indoors and away from others at all costs.
Except, apparently, for one man who really wanted to play Pokemon GO and violated the lockdown and was caught by police. Newsweek reported on Thursday that a man just had to play the mobile Pokemon game that had actually changed its rules recently to encourage people to play from the comfort of their own homes. But apparently the allure of the Pocket Monsters was just too much and he paid the price for it.
However, one 31-year-old man, who was reportedly stopped by the carabinieri on the streets of San Fermo, in the northern Como province, believed that he had a good enough reason to be outdoors, when he explained that he was playing “Pokemon Go.”
The man had gone outside with his daughter to play the augmented reality game. When officers asked him why he was flouting the restrictions, he said, “I have to hunt the Pokemon,” leggo.it reported.
The publication reported that police had no option but to charge him and he joined the more than 43,000 people across the country who have been sanctioned for breaking the lockdown restrictions. According to the Interior Ministry, between March 11 and 17, more than one million people have been checked.
This is, obviously, a terrible idea, especially in a place where full lockdowns are in place. San Francisco, for example, has a shelter in place rule instituted and other major cities like New York and Chicago are strongly advising people to stay indoors. It’s unfortunate if your place of residence is not a PokeStop or Gym, but some things are more important than keeping your Pokemon GO streaks alive. Like the greater health and safety of your fellow citizens, for example.