It is more than three years since the words 'coronavirus' and 'Covid-19' entered our vocabulary and the pandemic upended our lives.
For many of us, the scars from that period are still tender. For others, the wounds inflicted by Covid-19 – whether through the illness itself, or the effects of lockdowns, social distancing, disrupted education and isolation from family and friends – remain raw.
One of the most heartbreaking aspects was how people could not visit sick or elderly relatives when the restrictions imposed by the government were at their tightest. There were prolonged periods when physical contact was banned; sons and daughters, grandchildren, spouses and loved ones could not hold hands with an ill relation in a hospital ward or nursing home, could not hold them or comfort them with a hug and the profound intimacy of caring.
A tragic theme of the pandemic was how sick, often elderly, people were left to die alone, with their last contact with their family a telephone or video call from a device held by a masked nurse cloaked in protective equipment.
Dehumanising as those experiences were, it is a remarkable tribute to the public's sense of the common good that the restrictions were so widely adhered to. Painful sacrifices were needed, we were told daily by figures including the preposterous Boris Johnson, in order to protect the safety of our family, friends and neighbours.
Little wonder that there is such anger and revulsion at the latest example of Covid rule-breaking to come to light. Footage obtained by the Mirror shows Tory party staff dancing and joking about Covid restrictions during the height of the pandemic at a Christmas party in December 2020.
"As long as we don’t stream that we’re, like, bending the rules," says someone in the video; a table groans under the weight of food and drink; people are dancing. The lonely Christmas so many of us experienced in 2020 was not universal.
Perhaps the epitome of this sense of 'us and them' is the culture of flouting the restrictions and partying that went on in Downing Street when Johnson was prime minister.
This was laid out in forensic detail by the House of Commons Privileges Committee in a report last week which finally prompted Johnson, a political charlatan and a moral vacuum, to flee Parliament rather than face the consequences of his actions.
The dignity and forbearance with which the public approached the Covid restrictions has never looked in sharper contrast to the tawdry conduct of a political class who didn't believe the rules they made also applied to them.
