Christmas isn't that far away and the more eager among us are headlong into preparations and planning for the celebration season. For many families, it is the time of year that they get together.

Some only get the whole family in the same room on that one day of the year, or even less often when they are separated by state and international borders.

Many of those Christmas trips back to Tasmania will already have been cancelled due to the uncertainty surrounding travel and borders caused by the pandemic.

But for those who have family plans for a big Christmas Day, current restrictions on gathering could mean they won't be able to get together - or if they do are risking being on the wrong side of the law.

It's one of the regulations brought in at the height of the pandemic which were very reasonable at the time, but people are now starting to question after months of no cases of coronavirus in Tasmania.

The same goes for the extremely tight crowd limits for major sporting events.

Putting an arbitrary cap of 1000 in a big sporting arena doesn't make a lot of sense to a lot of people.

Nobody can argue that we need to have a way for authorities to manage large public and private gatherings.

But there seems to be an inability at present to explain these limits, other than it is on 'public health advice'.

To say you may not be able to gather with all of your family on Christmas Day, when you have probably mixed with each and every one of them in the days leading up to the holidays, just doesn't fit with common sense for many of us.

Our public health officials have gone above and beyond in their efforts during the pandemic in doing what they know is necessary to keep us safe.

But they perhaps need to give our politicians the room to move now to loosen the binds and reward the majority of those who did the right thing with coronavirus on our doorstep.

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