But in many ways it is indescribable; its shocking surprise, its global reach, its grim power within months to up-end the world's economy and its sinister capacity to creep into almost every individual's life and shatter their certainty.

It's a threat that has led to reversals in thinking and acting that certainly has had no precedent in many people's lifetimes.

Comparisons with SARS, swine or avian flu or even inluenza have faded form the public discourse and only comparisons with full blown war seem to have relevance in trying to comprehend the concept.

Perhaps even more unsettling is the recognition that the seemingly invulnerable world order, the driving colossus of the international economy can be brought to its knees by a microscopic bug.

And for all our fabulous technological advancements and the triumph of our sophistication, ineluctable mortality comes visiting in the most invisible of ways.

"As if this flesh which walls about our life, Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus, Comes at the last and with a little pin Bores through his castle wall, and farewell..."

But this crisis is not new. Plagues of staggering devastation were frequent through history, even if we have forgotten them in our hubris. Perhaps we need another Shakespeare to fully describe our experience and this latest compelling momento mori.

And with that we need the capacity to describe an era, the ability to capture the saving grace of the species that has and will continue to fights its way through cataclysm.

For despite the debilitating anxiety and downright misery this disease has already inflicted, it is worth noting that there are some constants even in this rapidly changing world.

One of these The Courier wants to celebrate is the human spirit.

We see it in the everyday but ineffable altruism of people helping each other, the inventiveness of hope and the tireless hard work of those who through scientific endeavour refuse to accept that a insidious, microscopic invader will win.

There are many people working in strange and difficult times but the medical profession is one of the most outstanding. This includes those who undaunted continue their difficult research to find cures for coronavirus and other afflictions like cancer.

To quote the bard again; "O brave new world, That has such people in it"