MY taxi driver had some kind of American talk radio station on and he was nodding along sagely as the aggressively confident host boomed away about the media hype surrounding the coronavirus.

"It's not as bad as flu," he said, "It doesn't kill people the way normal flu does," while one of the guests tried to interject with a correction. The gent would not be corrected and demanded to know where the guest was sourcing his fake news from.

He cited a completely reputable news source only to be told this was nonsense and not in line with what the president was saying.

Visions of Donald Trump's utterly incompetent national address floated in front of my eyes, alongside mental screenshots of the presidents tweet that the media was not giving him enough praise for his handling of the outbreak.

General approaches to the worsening news about coronavirus seem to fit into distinct camps: dismissive to the point of denial; alarmed to the point of frantic and incoherent panic buying of toilet roll; those with a keenness to start protective measures as soon as possible; and those who only started to worry when they learned Tom Hanks was ill.

Personally, I've gone from extreme eye-rolling at the stockpilers to thinking it might be useful to ensure my mum has some tins and powered milk in, just in case.

I have friends who are already keeping or planning to keep their children home from school. Others are cancelling plans and spending more time at home, other than essential work or grocery trips. Others still are cancelling holidays abroad.

The one thing in common to these proactive approaches is that they aren't making these changes to protect themselves - they're doing it with their thoughts on their elderly relatives.

And the one thing we all have in common is that we surely all know someone who is particularly vulnerable to severe illness should they catch the coronavirus. That, if nothing else, must be the uniting factor that pulls us through this crisis.

Because, despite being told that this will be the worst health crisis in a generation, petty discord is still being created. Following yesterday's COBRA meeting, Nicola Sturgeon gave a public briefing about where we are and what the next steps will be.

Commentators wound themselves up at the fact Ms Sturgeon went ahead before Boris Johnson had a chance to give his national briefing, these commentators sniping as if she was a prime ministerial understudy, rather than the leader of a country.

This really isn't the time for constitutional squabbles. A well kent journalist called the First Minister's actions "a borderline coup d'etat". Things have certainly taken a turn for the mundane since the days of the Rum Rebellion.

A so-far relaxed Boris Johnson put a fine point on it during yesterday's post-COBRA briefing. "I must level with the British public," the prime minister said, "Many more families are going to lose their loved ones before their time."

This is, incidentally, from the same prime minister who was only in the last few days showing a cavalier attitude to handshakes, despite having a pregnant partner at home.

In the coming days and weeks it is likely that people will be asked to work from home. Large events will be cancelled; it's possible that schools will be closed. There will be claim and counter claim, back and forth, about whether our respective governments are doing enough to stem the outbreak. There will be disputes about whether they are working effectively together.

In a more minor way, social distancing will be expected - staying two metres or so away from other people, avoiding unnecessary trips out. There will be grumbling, at best, and lonely isolation, at worst.

The crisis will show just how much we rely on unpaid care work to keep things ticking over. Grandparents, who fill so many of the childcare gaps, will have to step back from their duties for their own protection. The slack pulled by those of us who have caring responsibilities for older and elderly relatives will be stark.

School closures, of course, have a much broader impact than exams being cancelled. Exams, while this is stressful for young people who are relying on results to steer choices that will shape their futures, can be rearranged.

What of the pupils who take free school meals or attend breakfast clubs or holiday lunch clubs - for them education comes with a literal side serving, and one that is vital to making ends meet in straitened homes.

There was concern expressed by a medical expert that cancelling sports matches will only serve to push people to gather in pubs to watch games.

In a political climate where the focus is on the individual, we will have to radically alter our thinking to focus on the collective good during this crisis.

We will need to be willing to sacrifice our pleasures - sports, the cinema, theatre and gigs. When stocking up on those extra tins, there must be a pause to consider whether we really need as many as we're taking or are we leaving someone who is more vulnerable without.

On Facebook groups have already sprung up encouraging those who are willing and able to commit to making food drops to elderly and vulnerable people in their communities. From disaster springs a bit of hope.

The early narrative that said we shouldn't worry too much because coronavirus "only" seriously affects the elderly and those with underlying health conditions has been roundly criticised with its quiet assumption that the elderly and the vulnerable have less value than those with robust health and youth.

We need to go a step further and really prioritise choices that will put prioritising the worst affected groups to the fore.

As social distancing takes its toll we’re going to need community to get us through.