NONE of us can remember a time like this. I’m sitting at home and there’s an eerie silence outside.

No planes overhead, no cars, the distant rumbling of the railway silenced. Television reports Boris Johnson has tested positive for coronavirus.

The only precedent I can think of is Spanish flu which swept across the world from 1918 to 1920 killing millions of people.

It disproportionately affected young adults, and I remember my grandma talking to me about it, telling me how terrified she and her friends were. Censors had tried to downplay reports of the pandemic’s ferocity in an attempt to maintain morale at the end of the Great War.

Censors are a thing of the past in today’s multimedia society. The danger for us isn’t too little information, but too much – or at least the wrong information, either maliciously spread, or else disseminated through ignorance.

As we try to work out how to cope with these next weeks and months, one thing is clear: We must listen to the experts. We must ignore hearsay.

And the experts are united in telling us how this deadly new virus is spread. It comes at us through saliva and mucus particles. It can enter our system through the mouth, nose, and ears. And it lives on surfaces those infected may have touched.

So the advice is unambiguous: Stay at home. Avoid close contact with other people. Only go out for necessary shopping, exercise, and medicine.

My staff and I are all working from home. The team are deluged with constituency casework and we are handling it as fast as we can.

I’m not alone in recognising that this crisis brings out the best and worst in people. The UK Foreign Office isn’t covering itself in glory.

I have constituents stranded across the world. And whilst many countries have repatriated their citizens, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab and his team seem to be floundering.

The FCO website tells UK travellers to “return home”, a wholly unhelpful instruction given that it’s impossible for most to do so.

Which brings us to the airlines, jacking up their prices and cancelling flights. Some of my constituents have run out of savings having bought multiple overpriced tickets, each one cancelled and an instant refund refused.

I’m also being contacted by constituents forced into work by employers who threaten them with the sack if they don’t comply. It’s not on. No one should be at work unless their business is essential.

But amidst all the darkness there are countless heroes: the shop workers and food producers working long hours, the emergency services, and our peerless NHS staff exposing themselves to risk to save lives.

Our community has rallied together as everyone who lives here knew it would.

Old people and other vulnerable groups are having their medicine collected and food cooked and delivered by volunteers in every corner of the constituency and all across Scotland.

Thank you to everyone working so hard to keep us safe.

The office of John Nicolson MP has launched an online resource collating the latest advice regarding coronavirus, including information regarding its impact both locally and nationally, and resources and contacts which may be useful during this difficult time.

To find out more, please visit: www.osp.scot/