IT would be really good to have something other than the coronavirus lockdown to talk about. But there isn’t, is there?

Life as we knew it three or four weeks ago isn’t really happening.

For many, the extent of their horizons are the four walls of their living room as they heed the government’s calls to socially isolate themselves.

For others, those who are still working, they have no choice but to run the risk of Covid-19.

And then we have those on the front line of the battle, those NHS staff and care workers.

What a debt we owe those people and I hope it’s a debt that we, as a society can repay once the pandemic is over.

The thing about a crisis is it has the potential to bring out the very best in people, but sadly it can also bring out the very worst.

I’m trying to limit how much online, social media and television news I’m consuming at the moment – a constant diet of death, illness and misery isn’t good for my mental health – but I did come across a pandemic-related story that appalled me.

It was about a 20-year-old man who was arrested by police after he was allegedly seen licking his fingers and touching goods at a Lidl in Dorset. The report says witnesses described seeing him lowering his protective face mask, licking his fingers and rubbing them onto items.

It’s easy to dismiss this as a bizarre, singular random act. But it’s not a singular act. You only have to look much, much closer to home. The Guardian reported on the court cases of two men who were jailed last week after spitting at supermarket staff and police officers during the coronavirus outbreak.

Patrick Delaney, aged 47, and Jason Robson, aged 52, were given sentences of 16 and 22 weeks respectively.

Delaney, from Howley, admitted spitting at employees and police during an incident at Lidl on Fennel Street.

Robson spat at two police officers near to his home address on Lovely Lane in Whitecross claiming that he had contracted Covid-19. He admitted two counts of assaulted an emergency services worker.

In all these cases, I have only one question. Why would anyone do something like that?

I don’t have an answer and couldn’t even begin to understand the psychology or motivation for carrying out acts such as this.

But for every headline-grabbing story such as these there are innumerable tales of kindness and thoughtfulness in these testing times.

Yes, the pandemic may have revealed the worst of some of us but it has also revealed the best of us as well.

Taking my state-sanctioned one piece of exercise a day, I was heartened to see the number of rainbow drawings and messages of support in the windows of houses on my estate. I was almost moved to tears on Thursday night at the number of people who came out of their houses to applaud and show their support for our front-line health workers.

I love that Facebook, which has the potential to be a force for ill, has been put to good use by people organising support groups for neighbours who are elderly or vulnerable.

Maybe, just maybe, when we come out the other side of this, the world will have changed a little. Perhaps it will be a kinder, more caring place where people who were being vilified a month or so ago as ‘low-skilled’ will be recognised as the key workers they now are.

Perhaps we should be replacing ‘low-skilled’ with the words ‘low-paid’.

And maybe it’s time to do something about that low pay. The evidence is there for everyone to just how valuable those on the front line in the battle against coronavirus are. We really shouldn’t forget what they are doing for us.