Everything we are going through in this crisis will be for nothing if we don’t use the time to review what sort of society we have created.

It’s time to rethink, rebuild, repair and, if necessary, reject.

When all this is over, we need to make the NHS our top priority again, and force those who left health and care workers unprotected to answer for their failure. When all this is over, we have to pay more than lip service to questions of mental health.

When all this is over, we must give real hope to young people and provide dignified care for the elderly, regardless of cost. When all this is over, we must stop believing the lie that we can’t afford either aspirations or compassion.

When all this is over, we need to defend the people we now all agree are heroes - people who, only a few short weeks ago, we allowed to be overworked, underpaid and cast as unskilled, menial and even failures.

When all this is over, stop judging people according to their income or wealth.

When all this is over, those who discovered their inner painter, musician, cook and craftsperson during isolation need to remember that investment in the arts isn’t a luxury after all - and stand up for it.

When all this is over, politicians should stop treating schoolchildren like lab rats. When all this is over, we need to think about how we treat animals and the environment, and the food we eat - because when all this is over it will no longer be acceptable to trash the word of true scientists.

When all this is over, we need to sort out the truth from the lies, and hold the liars to account.When all this is over, those who are proud of their intolerance must be shamed.

Because, above all, I think that when all this is over we need to neutralise those people in our society who poison it with their addiction to impatience, petty annoyance, anger and hatred. And when all this is over we should start by challenging those politicians and media outlets who thrive on stirring up the gullible by constantly fabricating new things for them to be outraged about.

When all this is over, let’s confront every bully and bigot who uses someone’s skin colour, disability, sexual orientation, nationality or language (or anything else that marks them as different) as an excuse for contempt.

When all this is over, stop listening to those who are unnecessarily angry with vegans, teenagers, the BBC, cyclists, transsexuals, ‘modern artists’, slow drivers, Muslims, Christians… and whichever other harmless people they have been encouraged to be angry with.

When all this is over, let’s live and let live.

This time last year I was enjoying a visit to Belfast - something that wouldn’t have been possible, a generation or two ago - and when all this is over, I highly recommend going there.

In the bad old days, the good people of Northern Ireland were on the brink of a kind of Armageddon, until they realised that politicians and other dark forces were driving them apart from neighbours who really weren’t so different after all.

By choosing hope instead of hate, they overcame an even bigger crisis than the one we are in now, and we must do the same - because when all this is over, continuing to seek enemies instead of making friends is certain to end in oblivion.

Don’t let history repeat itself, because this time, when all this is over, we really must build A LAND FIT FOR HEROES.