Australia is now in the eye of the coronavirus cyclone and a single question haunts everyone staring at the eerily quiet streets from home detention: how the hell do we get out?

The bad news is someone has yet to invent the answer. When they do it will be imperfect. A long dark road through winter still lies ahead as we march between the epochs of BC and AC: Before and After Coronavirus. On the other side the world will be a very different place.

We live in a democracy and at certain point older people should be free to make their choices. Credit:iStock

An exit plan cannot come soon enough. Each extra week Australia lies in a self-induced coma the more it entrenches economic and social damage as life-shattering as any plague. As the same radical cure is being imposed everywhere, misery is ricocheting around the globe. When the International Monetary Fund meets this week it is expected to forecast the deepest contraction for the global economy since the Great Depression.

The dire economic equation does not include the probability that this plague will spawn other crises. You don’t have to be an epidemiologist to know what prolonged worldwide poverty will bring. War. Famine. Civil unrest. The collapse of regimes. The rise of ultra-nationalist governments and extremist movements on left and right. Murder. Suicide. Domestic violence.