Just as a flash of lightening can suddenly illuminate a dark landscape revealing details that might otherwise have been missed, so the coronavirus epidemic has lit up parts of the social fabric hitherto neglected. That neglect may have been benign or at least not intended. But once seen in this new light, the problems cannot be unseen: further neglect becomes culpable. So it is in Britain with the care-home system for the elderly, and with that other realm where individuals are cooped up but without the freedom to remove themselves, the prison system.

Both feature in this week’s edition of The Tablet; both need wide-ranging measures of reform. In last week’s edition the head of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Britain drew attention to the plight of those on the very margins of visibility, immigrants without a permanent right to remain. All three groups of vulnerable people deserve much better, simply by virtue of their inalienable human dignity.

There is no need for the government to ponder what its agenda might be, after the epidemic has passed: it writes itself. Prison reform has been talked about for too long and must become a reality. Compared with the rest of Europe, there are too many in prison, far more than the prison estate can comfortably cope with. They have been called colleges of crime, as their ability to rehabilitate prisoners is severely limited by understaffing and overcrowding, but they are also becoming centres of mental illness and indeed of despair. This is despite the devoted work of many prison officers, underpaid and overworked as so many public servants are.