There was very little common sense on display at one of the daily press conferences this week. Journalists, keen to deliver politicians one of those "gotcha moments", proved common sense was in short supply as they tried to ensnare pollies in their sticky web.

They asked first NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard and then Premier Gladys Berejiklian to provide a definition of an "essential worker".

But the extraordinary spidey senses of the pollies alerted them to imminent danger. They hit obfuscation mood and blustered about something and nothing until, after a number shouty interruptions, the media pack gave up.

If essential worker is difficult for bureaucrats to define - in a pandemic - then heaven help them explain "common sense".

Let's get the good people in the nation's capital to do that. Canberrans have shown they are up to the task. Dozens of times over the past week they have contacted police about possible COVID-19 breaches.

Back in the day, that was called dobbing. In a pandemic, that's called using your noggin.

Canberrans have proven to be super-dobbers, with ACT Policing receiving 36 reports of "minor breaches" of COVID restrictions in the past week.

A number of people from hard lockdown zones have been sent packing and hundreds of university students, who travelled home to NSW for the semester break, banned from returning to the ACT due to Sydney travel restrictions.

It's happened on the NSW South Coast, too, where eight teenagers from Sydney were caught in Batemans Bay trying to escape lockdown.

With exposure sites in NSW and Victoria climbing exponentially as positive COVID cases spike, there's just one thing to do - stay at home.

You know it makes sense - common sense.

Did you know you can receive this daily digest by email? Sign up here

THE NEWS YOU NEED TO KNOW: