SINCE lockdown, despite the rising death toll, hundreds of thousands of young people have come forward in an empathic embrace for those most affected by the Covid-19 outbreak.

There are 750,000 NHS responder applicants, weekend supermarket staff and up to 400 different community aid groups.

This explosion of compassionate manpower has been described in the New York Times as “a stirring display of British national solidarity” and may even have led Boris Johnson to negate Thatcher’s famous maxim, admitting: “There is such a thing as society.”

News of a volunteer army blossoming out of a deeply divided society is good news, and quite moving too. However, we mustn’t pat ourselves on the back too hard. Having volunteered to ferry groceries and medicine for the local community relief group, I can tell you first-hand, the more people you interact with, the more apparent our institutional shortfalls become.

I signed up to my borough’s “Covid-19 community relief” just over two weeks ago, via a local Labour Party website. It started off gently, just two contacts on my roster: an elderly couple and a man with a chronic respiratory condition, both of whom had been flagged for needing intense levels of isolation for up to 12 weeks.

Every few days, each of them would send over a list of groceries and prescriptions for the pharmacy and every few days I’d cycle over to their door, bearing supplies.

Quite quickly, as those on my register started passing my number on to others in need — outside of the relief group — what started off as a bi-weekly shop soon became almost daily. After a while, it was fast becoming obvious that for everyone using the service, or asking me for help, there were another three of four vulnerable people too embarrassed or uninformed to call up the number, perhaps relying on neighbours and family members, likely asking for help less often than needed so as not to be a burden.

There are 1.1 million people aged over 65 in London alone, while one in five of us is statistically likely to suffer from long-term respiratory illness. 

However many volunteers services have, they need more.

It isn’t long before you hear the about the mismanagement, the wait times, the weeks of lockdown with no food or support. There’s a distinct lack of strong, coherent local government — which is understandable due to its consistent hollowing-out via the grim hand of austerity.

One of the people on my timetable, a man with severe immunodeficiency, described having waited “almost a month” for regular drop-offs after being flagged by his doctor; all he got was “scary texts from the government, no phone call or food.

“Lucky I’m resourceful” he went on, “or I would be dead, probably. If a friend hadn’t recommended a local aid group, I may not have found help at all.” The man in question now calls regularly — we exchange music and box-sets to watch. But just a few days ago he started to develop worrying symptoms.

The work is strange and made infinitely stranger by bike rides through a half-deserted London. No planes, no tourists, just the facade. It’s like something out of a Strugatsky brothers’ novel, the ruins of a roadside picnic, each component part still there, used up.

As I pulled up with pasta and medicine into a block of flats off the Kilburn High Road, I was greeted by two elderly women sat outside on a narrow green. One of them was visibly upset, the other was comforting her. When asked what was wrong, the woman showed me a 30-roll box of toilet paper she’d purchased on eBay.

It turned out the whole thing was a scam. there were indeed 30 rolls, but each had been meticulously unravelled to about a third its natural size. She didn’t tell me how much money she’d spent on it, but it was obviously a substantial percentage of her budget.

This goes to the heart of another problem. The disaster capitalism that’s allowed to take hold when the state doesn’t do enough to protect those in need.

It’s laughable that measures weren’t introduced to stop US-style panic-buying. When the entire social fabric relies on consumerism as a conduit for self-expression, prosperity and power, selfishness is baked into the system, and a crisis demands safeguards.

This elderly lady had only looked online as a last resort. These kinds of parasitic scammers might’ve been circumvented if the system had been quicker to react. You won’t be surprised to know that reports of such predatory behaviour are increasing, even with “scam units” put in place.

Furthermore, there’s the subtle indignity that vulnerable people are being made to face in this crisis. Without proper regulation from government toward maintaining consistent supermarket stocks, community volunteers are faced with the grim prospect of having to explain to people that their basic needs can’t be accommodated.

It is difficult telling people, particularly elderly people, that the local shop couldn’t account for their allergies or that they’ll have to wipe themselves with cleaning substitutes until stocks replenish. These people should be spared indignity; it’s they that bear the brunt of a deadly invisible assailant waiting for them outside.

Finally, mental-health networks must be adapted to fit the current excess demand. There are vast swathes of people trapped inside who haven’t spoken to anyone in weeks and are deeply lonely.

Not everyone has a loving family at their beck and call, some vulnerable people might be socially isolated at the best of times. For some, more than others, confinement quickly becomes a terrible deprivation. A rollout of mental-welfare services are a ballooning necessity for those isolating most intensively.

Loneliness is important, it’s a fundamental datum of our age; it was endemic before the virus and has only gotten worse, like the more widely publicised terror of domestic abuse.

When this is over, there need to be deep questions asked about how a supposedly wealthy society could’ve been rendered so defenceless, so vulnerable. Our economic system clearly isn’t properly equipped to adapt to crisis and, let’s not forget, more are coming.

How do we build a more compassionate future, one that will keep us safe? Society is only as strong as the weakest among us, and when this is over we need to make sure we’re never this weak again.

However, for now, with no end to the isolation in sight for those who need it most, it’s fallen on the people to apply the bandages.

Volunteer for Covid-19 mutual-aid groups at Covid-19mutualaid.org.

Volunteers for NHS responders at goodsamapp.org/NHS.

Support London foodbanks at london.gov.uk/coronavirus/volunteer-and-donate/coronavirus-Covid-19-supporting-foodbanks.