“When can things get back to normal?” This question is increasingly asked of ministers and their scientific advisers in daily briefings. Everyone looks forward to a time when we can move freely and without fear but this period of upheaval could give us the opportunity to re-evaluate what’s really important to us.

As Rebecca Solnit, an author who has specialised in the impact of disasters on society, wrote in The Guardian last week: “The first lesson a disaster teaches is that everything is connected. In fact, disasters…are crash courses in those connections. At moments of immense change, we see with new clarity the systems – political, economic, social, ecological – in which we are immersed as they change around us. We see what’s strong, what’s weak, what’s corrupt, what matters and what doesn’t.”

This sense of being connected, of being part of a global whole, might help us move to a more conscious belief that how we behave, organise our society, manage production and consumption really does matter. My hope is that we emerge from this crisis with a different sense of ourselves and our relationship with the world.

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