After three years of dodging the contagion that is the Coronavirus, years spent dutifully wearing masks, being vaccinated and being generally wary of congested public spaces, I finally succumbed earlier this week. It is hard to know exactly where and when contact with an infectious person may have occurred (given the generous gestation period) so I have given up thinking about it. I prefer to endure what's coming and head off, at sickness end, into the blazing sunshine.

Symptomatically, it is also a little sketchy. A rough first day followed by mild subsequent days have not left me complacent, knowing that the virus has the capacity for many tricky twists and turns. Who knows what is round the corner? I only know that it must be borne.

Covid has been a bit of an existential crisis for humanity. The receding wave of optimism that was apparent during the late period of globalisation has now passed and the latter may well be a permanent victim. This virus had a leading hand in that demise. I am not one for settling behind national boundaries as a mercantilist spirit rises again, nor for standing by as dictators make ambit claims in the light of waning democrat norms, but pandemics have a way of changing perceptions and maybe, we are at that hypothetical crossroad again. When was the last time, and what happened next?