In the absence of a vaccine or a cure for COVID-19, how might we build resilience to it? To buy ourselves the time necessary to grapple with the health threat the virus poses, adopting radical new physically distanced behaviours is crucial.

These paradoxically distanced yet pro-social behaviours have the potential to undermine the capitalist world system and its treadmill existence. Like many, I initially felt relief at the prospect of having to ‘slow down’ and shared posts on the coronavirus as an opportunity to mitigate the climate emergency. After a catastrophic season of bushfires in Australia, in which over a billion native – including rare and endangered – animals perished, it was easy to welcome the pandemic as a kind of mother-nature enforced de-growth. Just look at the silver linings – air pollution has dropped and the water in Venice is clear again!

Then came the sobering surge in deaths in Northern Italy and with them the reality that, for all its potential to push us towards more sustainable ways of living, COVID-19 is not simply a ‘common flu’ to be taken lightly and is instead a force to be reckoned with. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has described the virus as the biggest challenge Italy has faced since the second world war.

While we are all in the same boat with this pandemic, as Italian writer Francesca Melandri points out, that boat looks different depending on your circumstances. Inequality matters more than ever.