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You are not alone. We are fighting this disease together – and we will win

Social distancing doesn’t mean emotional distancing: we can help each other online as well as in person 
Social distancing doesn’t mean emotional distancing: we can help each other online as well as in person
YouAreNotAlone - InArticlePromotion
YouAreNotAlone - InArticlePromotion

We at the Telegraph are launching a new section for our readers in light of the coronavirus outbreak. You Are Not Alone is a collection of stories to showcase community spirit, bring you the best advice and share tips for coping.  It is a metaphorical space for readers to gather and share expertise while coronavirus prevents us from meeting in person. Social connectivity is more important now than ever, and we want you to remember that you're not alone. 

We live in a time of monumental uncertainty. And yet as I sit here, the cherry blossom in my garden is opening on the highest branches. The wisteria buds fatten. The sun breaks through the clouds. I remember staying on a friend’s farm in Yorkshire during the foot and mouth crisis, watching the lambs leap past the kitchen window. As we sipped coffee and looked out at the perfect spring scene, she said, “The worst part is you don’t know when it is coming, or where it is, it is just there, in the air”.

And yet – then as now – we all keep buggering on, as Churchill said. The Blitz spirit, was largely possible because people could get together to cheer each other up. In 1942, Jan Struther’s wartime creation, Mrs Miniver, wrote, “Things happen too quickly, crisis follows crisis, the soil of our minds is perpetually disturbed. Each of us, to relieve his feelings, broadcasts his own running commentary on the preposterous and bewildering events of the hour: and this, nowadays, is what passes for conversation.”

Coronavirus podcast newest episode
Coronavirus podcast newest episode

It is impossible for us to live in a state of emotional uncertainty for as long as it will take for us to come through this pandemic, for it to be all of what passes now for our conversation. But the worst of times can also bring out the best in people; this is the moment when we show who we truly are. While the online world can be a cesspit certainly, it also gives us opportunities for kindness. In the past few febrile days, you don’t need to look very far to find strangers comforting strangers. Yesterday on Twitter, there was a wise and calming thread from an advanced nurse practitioner, @bluelortscher. She said: “Every sensible decision you make is an act of love for your loved ones, for the most vulnerable, and for your community’.

In my own corner of London, very quickly groups emerged to help each other with shopping, dog walking and picking up prescriptions. There are whole Facebook threads devoted to strategizing about how best to do this safely, in the manner of a complex military operation.

Our local bookshop is encouraging self-isolating locals to call, tweet or email them for book suggestions, which others have volunteered to deliver by bicycle around the borough. I have put a card through my elderly neighbour’s door, listing every single way possible to get in touch with me if she needs anything. With another neighbour, I have arranged a doorstep exchange of a pot of antibacterial gel for a Tupperware container filled with ribollita, in the manner of two especially effete spies at the height of the Cold War.

Cyclists are delivering books from local book stores to the local community
Cyclists are delivering books from local book stores to the local community

With my immediate neighbours, we have a WhatsApp group where we offer to pick things up from the shops for each other if one of us is going out, or to alert each other to gold-dust supermarket delivery slots which others have booked that we might all share. (This isn’t without its perils. I have a Saturday Ocado delivery booked – the Eton of delivery service time slots – which I reserved last week by putting two bottles of champagne in the basket. The site is now impossible to get back into to make my proper order, so I look forward to Saturday night self-isolation with my two good friends, Champagne I and Champagne II, for company.)

Social distancing doesn’t mean emotional distancing. All around us, people are arranging everything from book groups to yoga online. An acquaintance is planning to watch a concert with friends, complete with Skyped interval drinks and snacks and gossip. I’m pencilling in regular Skyped Scrabble sessions with my mother who is self isolating in Bishop Auckland and read interesting bits of the paper with my dad over the phone. I’m also sharing with friends links to museums that have online talks about parts of their collection and – lest we all emerge from this far too improved – I am using Netflix Party to link up with my best girlfriends for long-distance movie nights.

A family video call
A family video call

Connection is important. It is what will get us through this crisis in the best possible state to embrace whatever comes next. We are all thinking of creative ways to keep up with our best belovèds, but what could come from this is closer ties to our wider communities. In a world where we feel powerless, seizing opportunities to help each other makes us feel better, more useful, less helpless. Kindness is a helluva drug.

What is undeniably true is that we will emerge from this pandemic changed. We may question the way we lived before, what we valued before, and how we worked before. Many people are now working from home for the first time and finding it’s not only possible, but enjoyable. Perhaps we don’t need so many face-to-face meetings? Perhaps it’s possible to shrug off the cult of busy-ness and live a more balance life? Certainly, a more flexible way of working that embraces all of the technology we now have at our disposal could benefit us all. We will continue to create and innovate and emerge with new solutions to problems we couldn’t have imagined even just a few weeks ago.

This will not last forever. All over Italy, people are hanging homemade banners saying andrà tutto bene from their windows. Everything’s going to be all right. We need to hold that thought tightly, in our immaculately clean hands. And remember you are not alone - together we can bring Britain together. 

Five examples of community-spirit that show how we're fighting back against coronavirus

1. Worried about the closure of pubs and bars? The wine milkround is here to help

2. Meet the rugby club delivering food to the needy during the coronavirus crisis

3. 'My landlord is keeping a roof over my head during the coronavirus crisis'

4. Book clubs go virtual while members self-isolate

5. Families hold their own homemade St Patrick's Day parades

 

To read more uplifting stories, advice and community news from You Are Not Alone, click here.