I’ve spent a lot of time this past week feeling angry. Angry at Boris Johnson and the British government for the complete lack of leadership it has shown over its response to coronavirus; anger at the people panic buying toilet roll, baby formula and paracetemol “just in case”; anger at the people continuing to behave as normal, as though we are not in the middle of the biggest challenge for a generation.

We are all facing much uncertainty right now. Not just on these shores, but all across the world. Sadly, the decisions – or should I say lack of – being taken at Westminster are not doing anything to quell the sense of frustration and anger many of us are experiencing in Britain and Northern Ireland. While countries right across Europe continue to take drastic steps to ensure people limit contact with others, at the time of writing, people across the UK were still going to mass concerts (around 10,000 people attended two open-air Sterophonics gigs in Cardiff earlier this week) schools remained open, and only those displaying symptoms of COVID-19 were being asked to self isolate, meaning many people sharing a house with an infected person but without symptoms were walking among us and spreading the virus. Meanwhile, we have stopped testing people for coronavirus unless they are in hospital so we have lost the ability to know and understand the true scale of the fast-changing situation. I suppose the numbers can’t increase by too much if you reduce testing, though, right? It’s complacent and delusional. And it’s going to cost unnecessary lives. With all of this in mind, it’s understandable that many of us are feeling vulnerable and fearful for what the future holds. Such feelings can be a breeding ground for anger, because we want to create a sense of control and power in the face of such uncertainty. While anger can have a place in pushing people to action and creating change for the better – I’m thinking particularly of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the earlier women's suffrage movement – there’s also some good to be found in sitting with the feelings of sadness, fear and uncertainty and talking about them with our loved ones to open up a space where we can become more compassionate and caring. And I don’t think we could get enough of that in this current climate. I learned this week, when I got to the bottom of all the anger I was feeling, that if we look beyond the people selfishly stockpiling, beyond the government’s neglectful approach, there are signs of hope.

In our health service, we owe so much to the doctors, nurses and staff continuing to put their lives at risk on the frontline. Hope is also evident among retail staff, continuing to go to work to stock shelves or make deliveries, to ensure people have the food they need.

But hope can be found in other, less obvious places, too.

On the social media pages of the authors sharing their books with the world to help families struggling to entertain children at home, or the notes dropped through letterboxes by the fit and healthy with offers to go out and buy supplies for anyone self isolating.

Honestly, despite my efforts I still get daily bouts of anger – it’s impossible not to when you consider the reckless way in which the UK government has handled this emergency to date and been playing Russian roulette with our lives. But sitting around feeling angry doesn’t actually achieve anything at a critical time such as this. Slowing down and connecting with our families as we spend more time at home, reaching out to those in need and finding out how we can play our part - however small - to help, and perhaps most critically, following WHO advice rather than anything from the British government - is what will get us through this.

Our grandfathers were asked to go to war. We are being asked to stay at home. Please think of others in this crisis. It’s all that matters.