I've seen a lot of frustration over fines for families using open park space. At face value, it certainly feels like an overreach, but allow me to get a little 'theory of the commons" on you...

Physical distancing is a really unique collective action problem. It appears to be a public good of collective health (non-excludable and non-subtractable). But I would argue it's more of a common-pool resource of "emptiness", which is subtractable.

One person entering an empty space subtracts from its emptiness. If only one person/family does, that's fine, but if everyone does, we lose the resource entirely.

The good we are trying to collectively produce is lack of opportunity for viruses to transmit. One family in an open park SEEMS harmless, and from strictly a transmission perspective, it is. But this isn't just a transmission problem, this is also a collective action problem.

We know quite a bit about governance of common-pool resources, and in cases like this, it is known to be useful to use graduated sanctions to enforce rules of the use for the collective resource.

So while a fine for a family in a park seems like ridiculous overreach, it is very likely an important component of ensuring that the resource (emptiness) is sustainable.

This doesn't mean we can't change the rules, though. What I'm saying is whatever rules we have, we all need to follow or the resource collapses.