Remember the good old days when supermarket shelves were stocked with toilet paper? Remember when only a few people were familiar with the phrase “social distancing”? Remember when you could cough in public without immediately becoming a pariah? Remember February?

I have never been so nostalgic for “normal”. I have never longed so desperately for a dull day. Just a few weeks ago, I didn’t appreciate how great my mundane life in Manhattan was. Popping to a pilates class, grabbing a drink at a bar, going out for dinner: those were unremarkable activities I took for granted. On Monday, however, all those things became impossible to do in New York. Gyms, cinemas and bars closed; restaurants became takeout-only. Schools shut. The city that never sleeps had its lights turned off.

None of this was unexpected, of course. It was the sensible thing to do in the face of a public health crisis; it should have happened sooner. Telling people not to go out while keeping everything open is lousy, cowardly leadership. (Here’s looking at you, Boris Johnson!) In any case, it does not work: restaurants and bars were packed over the weekend in New York, despite calls for social distancing. There was a lot of tut-tutting about this, a lot of moralising about selfish millennials, but you can’t blame people for going out. We have been bombarded with misinformation and mixed messages about coronavirus. Can you really expect everyone to drastically change their behaviour overnight when, not so long ago, we were being told by the president to keep calm and carry on, that coronavirus is just like the flu?

Closing down public spaces was the right thing to do, but it still feels horribly wrong. Walking through town and seeing all the shuttered clubs and restaurants was gut-wrenching. Those were not just places to spend time or grab some food; they were the heart and soul of the city. Gentrification has already driven out lots of small businesses; the economic consequences of coronavirus may kill the rest. Unless the government introduces drastic relief measures, I do not know how service workers will survive. I do not know how creatives and freelancers will survive. I do not know how New York will survive. The only people still able to live here will be the rats and the super-rich.

If someone had told me a month ago that Broadway would close and New York’s bars would shut, I would have laughed in their face. If someone had told me the US would suspend flights from the UK, meaning my mum would have to cancel her planned visit, I would have scoffed. If someone had said the EU would consider banning non-essential travel to Europe for 30 days, I would have thought they were being dramatic. But every morning brings unprecedented news and a new normal.

It is a sobering reminder that we should never take anything for granted. I may have been able to jump unthinkingly on a plane before Covid-19 came along, but free movement has always been a luxury, not an equally distributed right. Gaza is all too familiar with life under a lockdown. In the West Bank, going to visit a relative in another town has long involved dealing with paperwork and military checkpoints. One person’s frightening new reality is another person’s status quo.

I am trying to battle coronavirus-induced anxiety by appreciating every mundane moment. I am finding new pleasure in ordinary things such as eating pasta with my partner or going to the park with the dog and feeling the sun on my face. When you are faced with a crisis this big, little things are more important than ever.