Last time, we bailed out the banks. This time, Laurie argues, we should bail out the planet.

When the celebrities started singing to us, that’s when I knew we were in trouble.

I could see what they were thinking. Wouldn’t it be a heartwarming and gracious gesture to record a singalong to John Lennon’s insipid anthem ‘Imagine’ for our adoring public? No doubt, they must be in withdrawal as Hollywood solemnly announces their latest superhero franchise instalments are indefinitely delayed.

"You know, this virus has affected the entire world,” begins ‘Wonder Woman’ star Gal Galdot in the viral video. “It doesn't matter who you are, where you are from, we are all in this together." And yet, being serenaded by some of the wealthiest people on the planet from their gated mansions left me strangely uncomforted.

There was no getting away from it: there are huge divides between the ways people will live with this pandemic both now and in the years to come.

As Adam Ramsay writes on openDemocracyUK: “Wealth and power will define who is bankrupted and who isn’t, who gets the care they need and who suffers, who becomes sick and who doesn’t.”

Despite this, there have been calls from some politicians and journalists to avoid “politicising” the crisis. But, as Adam points out, there is nothing more political than a pandemic and the life-and-death decisions our governments make during them.

You only have to look back to the 2008 financial crash to see that the question of what comes after a crisis is also inescapably political. As Laurie Macfarlane writes on ourEconomy, we cannot return to business as usual if we want to protect people.

One of the cruellest ironies of the pandemic is that, according to estimates by US academics, the fall in air pollution from slowed economic activity may save 50,000 lives in China. That’s far more than the 3,248 deaths due to the virus in the country reported at the time of writing.

Last time, we bailed out the banks. This time, Laurie argues, we should bail out the planet.