I've been thinking a lot about a better normal and what we do once the crisis is over - or at least, the worst of the crisis of over.

Because it's a political and social crisis as much as a medical one.

So, hopes and fears for the new normal? I have a few...

Over the last few weeks we have seen NHS staff hailed as heroes. I hope that we will see value in recruiting medical staff from around the world. The NHS is loved across the political spectrum, however deep the political disagreements about how to run it.

I fear that after the crisis is over politicians will continue to talk about the NHS instead of to the NHS. I fear that medical staff will continue to be seen as either self-sacrificing saints or as troublesome naysayers, instead of as human beings trying to do an essential job.

I hope that immigration is reconsidered in light of truly essential jobs - food picked in our fields and orchards, deliveries to and from supermarkets, staff for care homes and hospitals. I fear that we will quickly return to a points-based system where the main factor is salary.

I hope that the upheaval to our collective working lives will encourage the government to look at ideas such as UBI and businesses to be more flexible around childcare and working from home. I fear that the opposite will be true: a return to “business as usual”, only harsher.

I fear that businesses cutting staff will chose those who asked to be furloughed because there was no childcare. I fear that the narrative will become that “everyone can work from home”, forgetting that it is predominantly lower paid or temporary jobs which need to be on site.

I hope that birdsong is prized more than business trips abroad. A break of a few months will not undo the damage done to the planet over decades.

A good new normal would be one in which COP26 gets back on track, and governments are keen to show that they will reduce carbon emissions. The world I fear is one in which governments consider that the environment has taken a respite break.

The world I fear is one where corporations continue to pay lip service to environmental concerns while taking no action. Where we forget how much we valued our daily walks.

The world I fear is one where the media urges us to consider all those potential holidays missed during the crisis and fly off somewhere extra special and extra far away.

I am worried that the new normal will be worse than the old normal.

In one sense, we want to be able to return to normal as soon as possible – a normal in which we can hug friends, kiss relatives, let children play together. But at the same time, the current horror forces us to re-think what should be normal.

A new normal comes about because people (that includes me and you) change their minds about what’s important and what’s acceptable. People are persuaded that it IS possible for the world to change for the better, and because they think it might happen, they start to ask for it.

I am worried that we're not asking. I am worried that we're not talking enough about it. I am worried that we are learning nothing from this crisis, despite the fact that this crisis is one in which some of us are dying.

The current normal leaves people behind as we fail to act as a team. We need a new normal, and we need it to be a better one.

And if we're going to forge a new normal, we need to actually start talking about what we DO want, and about what we DON'T want. Pretty soon.

One of the things I'm doing at the moment is co-chairing @UnlockDemocracy. I'm thinking a lot at the moment about how we collectively forge a new normal.

Go support @UnlockDemocracy, if you can! https://unlockdemocracy.org.uk/