Virus can’t kill unity and spirit

THE global coronavirus pandemic is truly frightening. People are rightly acting on the medical advice being given. Italy is one of the hardest-hit countries, with the death toll reaching more than 1,200 people already, with health chiefs predicting the peak of the virus is still weeks away there.

Hundreds of thousands of people are self-isolating in the country with shops and schools closed and streets empty. Yet the human desire for contact – especially in tough and worrying times – endures.

There is a beautiful video on the internet, taken on the phone of someone shut in their house on a locked-down street in Siena, Italy, of neighbours all singing together through their windows. As a moment of pure human solidarity, it couldn’t be more perfect. That spirit and togetherness is going to be needed by all of us in the weeks and months to come.