The pandemic has become an all consuming menace, occupying nearly every moment of our lives. We all want to get through this and out the other side.

The other side though will be a very different world to the one we knew before, but the overwhelming majority will get there. Life will go on, the sun will still come up in the morning and go down in the evening.

We will lose loved ones, that is inevitable, but those left behind must roll-up their sleeves and carry on. Hopefully in a decade from now those who survived will look back, shed a tear, and then do their best to live happy and productive lives.

There will be though, I hope, an entirely new way of nations communicating with one another, meaning much stricter means of travel. If this pandemic teaches nothing else then it is now obvious that disease is spread by air travel far too easily.

This coronavirus is fatal to around 2 per cent of those who get it, the next pandemic could be far worse.

Brian Simmonds, Belmont Heights, Hatch Warren