Most of us have experienced nothing like this before. It is strange, forbidding and dislocating to a degree probably only experienced by those alive in the early 1940s. Events will get worse then hopefully better, but things will not go back to how they were. Nor should they.

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The first priority of the crisis is of course public safety, especially for the groups most at risk from catching the virus. But there are public policy issues, and different futures that might arise as the crisis unfolds. Covid-19 doesn’t exist in a political vacuum.

The overriding narrative around the crisis can go one of two ways. It can become a story of personal, social and national isolation, of stockpiling and looking after number one, spiralling into something more sinister. Blame and the politics of ethno-nationalism and authoritarian populism could be boosted.

Or a new and more hopeful common sense can start to dominate, one that identifies public health as a collective endeavour and reveals a fundamental truth: we’re interconnected social beings, ultimately reliant not on ourselves, but on each other.

The virus and the demands it puts on the state and on each of us are testing the limits of our society . The NHS has been on the verge of collapse for years. Covid-19 will push it over the edge. People will almost certainly die because of a lack of resources. The social care system, dependent on low-paid workers and starved of resources for decades, will likewise be stretched beyond its breaking point. Already desperate local councils simply have no slack to cope with the sudden and additional pressures being put on them.

That everything is stretched to breaking point, with no reserves,applies equally to the economy. And as ever, it’s people in poverty who pay most. Workers on zero-hours contracts and the gig economy are more likely to be laid off, but are also more likely to carry on working even if they are ill. They are given little choice.

The case for livable statutory sick pay is now obvious. Temporary support for mortgage, rent payments and utility bills should be put in place. But it’s a moment to go much further and examine how a basic income could now underpin not just the economy but the fabric of society. Because such pandemics are likely to recur. And in the current crisis, as everyone feels increased insecurity and the added pressure of caring for kchildren or vulnerable relatives, an ethic of compassion is becoming more apparent.

It’s not just the economy that needs public investment, but trusted news reporting like the BBC, the police and the armed forces, as well as experts, scientists and health specialists. And, as Gordon Brown has suggested, international institutions such as the World Health Organization will need strengthening too.

The crash of 2008 was the first big warning sign of Britain’s incapacity to cope with shocks, rather than markets simply exploiting them. Then came climate-driven floods. Now it’s Covid-19. Everything is stripped to the bone, just in time and just managing. So we can’t absorb the shocks. The individual in such circumstances becomes pretty meaningless. What matters is all of us being in it together.

From now on, we must ensure that the state and society have the resources, capacity and resilience to be shock-absorbent.

But the return of the state must take a 21st-century form. As our analysis in 45° Change demonstrates, in a world of digital networks and growing citizen-led autonomy, our collective ability to think, act and hold to account will not stop growing. The big state matters, but so do emerging civil society organisations. We need both top-down state emergency action and bottom-up capacity and resilience building. This could mean people really taking back control over their lives and the planet. Lives in which the way we travel and consume will never return to “normal”. What we do and learn now will prepare us to deal with the climate emergency.

This is a pivotal moment. The time for a reset. Usually it’s wars that flip systems from private back to public. The Boer war, and the poor health and education of the soldiers, sparked the birth of the modern welfare state. The second world war led to the postwar settlement. But this isn’t a war between people but one that unites the whole globe in our shared humanity. This, the war against Covid-19, must be the pivotal moment when the primacy of the public is re-asserted.

To be clear, this is not simply a battle of left versus right, but public versus private. In 1944 it was a Tory, Quintin Hogg, who first coined the term “social security”; today it is Angela Merkel who summed up the moment as a “test of our solidarity, our common sense and our love for each other”. Competition, cost-cutting and short-termism got us into this mess. Only cooperation, investment and long-termism will get us out.

• Neal Lawson is a director of the centre-left pressure group Compass